Sir, - In the Senate recently, David Norris quite properly criticised a certain provision of the Copyright Bill now before the Oireachtas - the provision which extends from 50 to 70 years the period, after the death of the original owner of a copyright, during which his/her heirs may claim exclusive ownership of his/her literary works. One understands that this is meant to bring us into line with other EU countries.
Senator Norris may yet get a chance to criticise another provision of that Bill, a provision which is in no way designed to bring us into line with the rest of Europe. I refer to the ridiculous provision for statutory deposit (Ch 22). This would require publishers to donate more than a dozen copies of each of their publications to certain libraries. My late friend and colleague, Michael Hewson, who succeeded me as director of the National Library, some 20 years ago attended a European conference on this matter. The conclusion of that conference was that no publisher should be required to deposit more than two copies of a publication in libraries of record.
A dozen copies of a cheap paperback, printed in a run of thousands, would be of little consequence to its publishers but this is not the kind of work which the library of a third-level institution will require. Consider such a work as Tony Sweeney's recent Ireland and the Printed Word, in an edition limited to 250 copies, selling at £150. A dozen copies of this, or of any substantial learned text, represent a serious threat to the viability of the publication. - Yours, etc., Alf Mac Lochlainn,
Lower Salthill, Galway.