The Bill clearly defines copyright as a property right, as in the wonderful buzzphrase, "intellectual property". But the inclusion of moral rights in the Bill has been widely welcomed. Moral rights for an author of a "work" - of literature, music, visual art, or whatever - include paternity (the right to be known as the author of the work), the right to control the use of the work, and integrity (the right to object to any mutilation or distortion of the work).
Moral rights have fetched up some interesting case precedents in other jurisdictions, such as the English artist who successfully took an injunction to stop a shopping mall draping Christmas decorations over a sculpture. Unfortunately, the Bill allows for these moral rights to be waivable if you sign a contract to that effect.
The Bill also deals with all sorts of niggling back issues, such as the photocopying of books. Copyright solicitor Linda Scales made the joint submission to the Dail Committee on behalf of CLE (the association of Irish book publishers), the Irish Copyright Licensing Agency (a collecting agency for royalties due to writers and publishers), and the Irish Writers' Union.
Arguing that her clients were dependent on copyright protection, and often in a weak economic bargaining position, Scales expressed grave concerns about the exhaustive nature of the "fair dealing" exemptions from copyright in the Bill - say, for photocopying in universities, libraries or "public establishments specified by the Minister for that purpose".
Orla Martin of CLE bemoans the Bill's increased provision for Legal Deposit, by which publishers are obliged by law to place a number of copies free in the National Library, the NUI Colleges and the reserved library in Trinity, the British National Library and others: "The librarians and universities argue that [to interfere with] this is a tax on learning, but in practice, they're getting free books, and a tiny industry is effectively subsidising them," she says. The Bill actually increases the legal deposit amount to 13 free copies of every book.
David Stanton is concerned about a key reversal in the Bill of the 1995 Supreme Court ruling, which stipulated that record companies could not demand royalty payments in advance. Under the Bill, they can. Also, an important Fine Gael/ Labour amendment on the compulsory registration of licensed collection agencies (such as IMRO, Phonographic Performers Ireland Ltd and Irish Copyright Licensing Agency) was ruled out of order as, under Dail rules, the opposition cannot enter an amendment which would impose a cost on the Exchequer. In the Bill as it stands, registration of a licensing body is voluntary. It fetches up an alarming vista: under the Bill, a multinational corporation could set itself up in this State, and demand royalties on its copyright, rather than rely on a collection agency to do so.
These are among the major issues facing the Committee in coming months, alongside new database copyright provisions, the issue of performers' rights, and the whole role of the Controller of Industrial and Commercial Property in conflicts.
This office at the Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment was created by the 1963 Act. Amazingly, the Controller has not made a single decision in all that time. There are now roughly 80 cases before the controller's Office. The Bill renews the position of controller, although Stanton, Scales and others are now calling for an Independent Tribunal on Copyright, as exists in the UK. They argue that the current situation is unworkable.
Stanton bemoans the fact that so many issues were not finalised at Committee Stage - and indeed that the issues have not been analysed sufficiently in the media - where copyright has deep implications. Under the Bill, staff print journalists now lose copyright, while freelance writers and illustrators are limited from republishing in other newspapers and periodicals - which takes away a significant part of their copyright, which was protected under the 1963 Act.
The National Union of Journalists sent forward a powerful submission to the Committee, but these proposed sections have run through without amendment. The NUJ is particularly concerned about Independent Newspapers' Unison web site, an online archive of all Independent-owned regional and national newspapers.
Michael Cunningham is an "internet developer" with his company Volta, and a founder-editor of CompuTimes for this newspaper: "The problem is that digital technologies make copying infinitely easier. It is physically possible to cut and paste chunks of text from one medium to another. You can download an image or sound or a piece of text from a web page and transfer it lock stock and the proverbials to another web page - but that doesn't make it legally right.
"Most traditional media publishers only woke up, around 1996 to 1998, to the fact that the internet was a serious medium, and they immediately adopted a very gung-ho attitude to copyright. Many of them at least in the markets I know most about - North America, the UK and Ireland - basically bullied the original authors about their rights under existing copyright law. People have to wake up to the fact that just because it's physically possible, you can't just ignore existing copyright law and moral principle."
In an increasingly competitive and global marketplace, newspapers now routinely republish articles by freelances on the internet, without asking permission or arranging terms with the original authors. However, the recent Tasini vs the New York Times case in the US Court of Appeals set off a few alarm bells, when the judge ruled that the newspaper giant was infringing a journalist's copyright by republishing masses of his work on the internet.
The New York Times hit back by purging his work from their internet site, Nexis. The media world awaits a settlement with keen interest.
