COPYRIGHT AND PUBLISHING ROUNDTABLE
Minutes of meeting June 12, 2003
1. Attendance:
Gabrielle Mackey (Attorney-General's Department); Helen Dakin (Australian Copyright Council): Ian Morris (National Library of Australia); Fiona Loader (Australasian Performing Rights Association/Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society); Graeme Innes (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission); Bruce Maguire (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission); Jane Evans (Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities); Libby Sturrock (National Information Library Service)
2. Apologies:
P Stubing (Australian Vice Chancellor's Committee); D.Fitler (Blind Citizen's Australia); J. Lewin (Australian Publisher's Association) N. Meahan (Pearson Education Australia); J. Howse (NSW Department of Educationand Training, representing the school education sector)
3. Agenda
The Agenda was confirmed
4. Minutes
Minutes of the last meeting dated 21 March 2003 were confirmed
5. Progress on actions from the last meeting:
a) Frequently Asked Questions received have been collated and will be circulated to the appropriate agency or organisation for a response (see item number 7 in the minutes)
b) The Australian Publishers' Association representative is unable to
attend this meeting as the APA is heavily involved with the APA Bookfair.
ACTION OUTSTANDING: APA to prepare information for circulation to members
at the next meeting regarding responsibilities under the DDA and the Copyright
Act and lists of designated contact persons for dealing with print disability
issues such as requests for electronic files.
c) ACTION OUTSTANDING: AVCC to report on investigation of the use of DEST infrastructure funding to encourage Universities to purchase electronic texts at the next meeting.
d) CAL continues to compile the database of materials produced under
the Statutory Licence. Responses have come from a wide range of Institutions.
ACTION: Information about the database to be added to the Roundtable Newsletter
and a link provided to the CAL web site from the HREOC and Roundtable
web sites.
e) Bruce Maguire gave a presentation at the Roundtable on Information
Access about the FAQ which were to be collected for the Copyright Roundtable
meeting. Much interest was expressed about the concept and members were
encouraged by HREOC's commitment and the formation of the Copyright Roundtable
f) Completed
6. Reports from members
a) Graeme Innes (HREOC)
HREOC has had some discussions with CAL about access to databases such
as Bookshare. Graeme is going to the U.S. and will take the opportunity
to discuss possible ways for Australian citizens to access these databases.
Reaction from preliminary e-mails has been not unreasonable. Consideration
could perhaps be given to access under a licence scheme via an Australian
web site. Bruce Maguire made the point that Bookshare comprises items
scanned by individuals and quality of scanning can vary.
ACTION OUTSTANDING: Graeme to report on outcome of discussions at the next meeting
Graeme also announced that HREOC has a new President. Justice John von Doussa was recently appointed.
b) Jane Evans (Roundtable for Information Access for People with Print
Disabilities)
Jane explained that the primary function of the Roundtable for Information
Access is to develop standards for alternate formats and that there is
a need to revisit and review these standards and bring them up to date.
Copyright is not specifically a focus and energies are necessarily focused
on the standards at this time.
c) Melissa Willans (CAL)
CAL have been involved with the National Library in a collaborative project
which is looking at digitisation of classic Australian works out of copyright
and out of print. The project named ClassiCAL was launched late last month.
ACTION OUTSTANDING: Melissa to report on this initiative at the next meeting
d) Fiona Loader (AMCOS)
The AMCOS Board approved a blanket licencing arrangement concerning musical
works with a number of publishers for NILS. This permits NILS to make
transcriptions for print disabled people without seeking individual copyright
permissions, so long as NILS provides information to AMCOS about what
has been produced in Braille. A suggestion was made that other organizations
such as Braille Writers may benefit from a similar arrangement.
ACTION: Bruce Maguire to send a list of alternate format producers to
AMCOS
e) Helen Darkin (Copyright Council)
Tabled the collated list of Frequently Asked Questions.
f) Libby Sturrock (NILS)
NILS staff have been in discussion with CAL on the interpretation of various
clauses in the Statutory Licence, particularly "reasonable time"
for seeking copyright permission. NILS is "stretching the limits"
of current copyright obligations at the moment, as it is believed a more
generous interpretation of what is permitted may be possible. NILS will
continue to consult with CAL for guidance and advice.
ACTION: CAL to proved Practical Guidelines for Print Disability Licence
fact sheet to NILS.
g) Ian Morris (National Library)
The Library is mainly concerned with Copyright as it relates to their
Legal Deposit responsibilities.
h) Gabrielle Mackey (Attorney-General's Department)
Phillips Fox will be preparing issues papers for the review of the Copyright
Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act. March - April 2004 is the date for the
completion of the formal review. Philips Fox has defined terms of reference
but submissions can be made directly to the A-G's Department if these
don't cover all issues.
7. Frequently asked questions
Questions were examined and assigned to the most appropriate agency to
answer under broad areas such as Statutory Licence, Fairdealing, Definitions
etc.
ACTION: Copyright Council to group questions and send back to Bruce Maguire
for circulation.
ACTION: Draft answers to be circulated in early August prior to the next
meeting.
8. Copyright Law Review report
Included in Attorney-General's report by Gabrielle.
9. Commonwealth Guide to Digital Rights Management
ACTION: Gabrielle to follow up with DCITA whether the Guide contains any reference to access issues and to report at next meeting
10. Update on work to achieve access to material continued in Bookshare and WebBraille repositories
ACTION: HREOC to report at the next meeting
11. National Repository of Publisher's Texts
To be added to Agenda and discussion deferred until next meeting.
12. Next meeting date (not confirmed )
Tentative date is 10 AM Thursday 28 August 2003.
Location: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Hearing Room,
Level 8 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney.
Minute Taker: Gabrielle Mackey
13. Other Business
Funding of BCA representative: If Darren Fitler is not available it was noted that it might be necessary to assist the BCA with funding to send another representative to Sydney.
Bruce Maguire's extended leave: Bruce will be taking extended leave from 23 June 2003. Michael Small will monitor e-mails and forward them to the appropriate person.
