Holmesglen TAFE:    Industry Overview

Legal Issues: Publishing & Writing - Week Five Journal

Speaker – Bruce Shearer

Copyright – what is it?

Duration of copyright – lifetime and seventy years.

How can we legally use someone else’s material?

1788 – When Australia was settled by white man. We have had Copyright in Australia since then.

Copyright comes into being when an idea is put into a permanent form.

IDEA                                                  FORM
Unexpected                                            Protected

When an idea is in a form it cannot be copied – ie, setting out a document, which is signed and dated.

Keep all your drafts and copies of written work in a journal so no one can copy it.

Berne Convention requires ©2003 but this has no legal authority in Australia, since the work here is automatically protected.

Copyright Act 1968 protects the following categories of material.

Literary Works:    Dramatic Works
Musical Works:     Artistic Works
Films:                     Sound Recording
Broadcasts:            Published Editions of Works

 

Literary Works:    Stories, poems, novels, Instruction manuals and Computer Programs.

Films:                      Scripts, plays and dance or dramatic works, e.g. choreography.

Artistic Works:      Photographs

Musical Works:      Obvious

Copyright laws are for Evan’s lifetime plus seventy years after death for Evan’s work.

Copyright User.

The Copyright holder or owner may sell the Copyright outright to another person.

License – The Copyright holder or owner may license the work to other parties under particular conditions.

Bequeath – Pass the Copyright on in the Will

Otherwise Deal à Roald Dahl auctioned his last children’s manuscript for a charity.

Copyright Infringement – Unauthorised use of Copyright materials is an infringement.

Fair Dealing – limited use of Copyright material is allowed for the purposes of reviews, education, news, criticism, or as incidental material in a broadcast.

CAL: Copyright Agency Limited

CAL looks after writers’ rights as well as photocopy, Internet and copyright issues for writers. Also an issue with CAL is public lending right and educational lending rights when you borrow books from public libraries or a university. Here CAL makes money to go back to writers or authors when you photocopy from books. You can only photocopy 10% of a book before you breach Copyright.

 

Government Speaker

Setting yourself up in a small business. A government representative introduced us students to the NEIS scheme which is federally run and funded. NEIS means New Enterprise Incentive Scheme.

Basic eligibility – receiving dole/pension. You need to have a new business which has not started yet and to demonstrate an ability to be commercially viable. NEIS offers a seven week program in training for small business management.

You can get financial support for twelve months ie, ten thousand dollars from Centrelink for free. You also continue to receive Rent Assistance and there is no limit on your business earnings to be eligible.

You are allowed to earn $20 000 per year in an outside job, or other part-time work, separate from your business over a 12 month period.

You, Evan, have access to a mentor program which offers encouragement for one year. Evan will attend a seven week full-time training course with NEIS.

The course meeting for prospective students is:
Every Tuesday 3-4pm
Level One: 160 Drummond Street, Oakleigh.

Evan’s payment through NEIS is:

$399.30 per fortnight plus Rent Assistance.

Most importantly to be eligible for NEIS you need to earn $5000.00 per year to be a commercially viable business and to actually receive a NEIS allowance.