What a coincidence. I was lamenting the lack of older meanjin content on the databases just last week.

This is wonderful news. Congratulations, Sophie, and your team for making available this extraordinary resource about our literary and cultural history. For research I am doing at the moment I have been reading 1945 issues where Clem Christesen provoked a furore by reprinting an essay by anti-communist Arthur Koestler from an English journal - at the beginning of the Cold War. It slated the left-wing 'intelligentsia' and among the responses in subsequent issues was a fierce one from Katharine Susannah Prichard. Also, Meanjin published Judith Wright before she was well-known and she actually moved to Brisbane where Meanjin was based in the early 1940s to help the Christesens get the issues out. For no pay, of course.

You seem to have had such jolly fun copying and selling the writing of your famous authors that you may have overlooked a basic copyright obligation that all serial publications editors share: “Copyright of each piece belongs to the author; copyright of the collection belongs to Meanjin Ltd. Republication is permitted only on request to author and editor.” I have been publishing in Meanjin for forty years. I don’t recall receiving such a request, much less a share of your payments from Informit, and you seem to have sold my writings in your magazine more than a year ago. As a noted politician once said, “Please explain”.

John, Informit sells the magazine as a whole digitally, so I felt we were covered by the fact we have copyright in the collection as stated on the imprint page. It is, in effect, an extension of a sale of the print version of the journal. In theory people can ask to buy individual articles, but the cost of this is prohibitive and discouraging so people don’t do it. (It would cost $33 a piece – it’s cheaper for people to call our office and buy back copies, of the journal, which they still do). I am more than happy to let Informit know that people cannot buy your poetry as individual works.

You are welcome to email me to talk more about this. My email address is meanjin@unimelb.edu.au . I’m the editor of Meanjin until December 20, after that time you’d be talking to the new editor, who is to be appointed at the end of the year.

Dear Sophie,

I hope you won’t mind if I reply here: it is a public issue, and it seems that many people misunderstand copyright who really should know better.

You have been a professional editor for decades, and it surprises me that you don’t seem to understand MUP’s legal position in this matter.

Previous editors of Meanjin published copyright warnings at the front of each issue. Stephanie Holt prints this: “© Copyright of each piece belongs to the author / © copyright of the collection belongs to the Meanjin Company Ltd.” This means that the authors hold copyright in each and every piece, and that the selection, arrangement, design and editorial work embodied in the collection as a whole may not be copied by anyone else; that is, an Overland editor cannot copy the contents of that issue of Meanjin and publish it as an issue of Overland, regardless of whether he pays the individual authors again or not.

A later issue of Meanjin, edited by Ian Britain, had moved into the online universe. It states that “Fees are generally determined by word-length and will include a 5% supplement to provide in advance for any copyright entitlement contributions may attract through the offices of the Copyright Agency Ltd. CAL provides authors with documentation of such entitlements, for which we will offer further remuneration when these exceed the initial 5% top-up rate. Meanjin licenses selected online publication through CAL. Copyright of each piece belongs to the author; copyright of the collection belongs to Meanjin Ltd. Republication is permitted only on request to author and editor.”

We are all familiar with the groundbreaking copyright case in 1975 that established that the University of NSW was acting contrary to the law in authorising photocopying of writing by Frank Moorhouse in its libraries, which decision was germane to the setting up of the Copyright Agency Limited mentioned above.

After consideration of numerous copyright issues, the court found “the appellant (UNSW) authorised the doing on 28th September 1973 by Paul Brennan of the act of reproducing the literary work ‘The Americans, Baby’ in a material form and thereby infringed the respondents' copyright in the said work”. You can read the Court’s decision in full here:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1975/26.html

You say you are pleased at having sold Frank Moorhouse’s writing in Meanjin — among other noted writers' work — to RMIT Publishing, thereby infringing his copyright all over again, 35 years after the legal case that established that this action was clearly against the law! Poor Frank!

The Copyright Act is a lengthy document. It is available here, in case you have misremembered some of the fine detail:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/

This is a painful matter, but I’d like to see this issue given some publicity in order to stop it happening again. Believe it or not, Meanjin is the third literary magazine to try this on.

Eight years ago Westerly said that they were going to put all their back issues online as part of the Austlit Gateway subscription service. Eventually and reluctantly they came to a proper understanding of their legal position and withdrew.

A few years later Southerly offered to sell the authors' copyright in all the items in their back issues to Gale in the USA, without consulting the authors, and suffered the discomfort of having to back out of the deal.

Sadly, Meanjin, MUP and RMIT Publishing are now in the same untenable legal position for the very same reason.

Editors of literary magazines — and their employers, such as MUP — must learn what the copyright statements at the front of their magazines really mean, and the meaning is very simple: the copyright of each piece is owned by the authors, not by the magazine.

The magazines own exactly what they have paid for: in each and every piece of writing, first Australian serial rights only.

As a result of their own expense and effort, they can also claim to own the copyright in the selection, arrangement, design and editorial work embodied in the collection as a whole, to prevent its being copied by anyone else.

Sincerely,

John Tranter

John, Nice rant, for that is what it amounts to. I think you might want to check some of your assumptions, as well as state your legal credentials, before making such a condescending and unwarranted attack. I must say I am disappointed that a writer of such standing can resort to the lowest form of wit in this circumstance.

The Copyright Act makes no mention of digital dissemination (of archives or otherwise), one of its flaws and why it needs revision. It can be found here in case you misremembered it yourself. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/.

As a writer, I would much prefer that my work gains a broader readership within a legitimate digital medium than let it sit gathering dust in the hope that some digital neophyte might trawl through the library stacks one day. I applaud Sophie and her team for their initiative in making a new generation of literature students aware of their cultural heritage.

Of course, I haven’t come to the realisation, as you so obviously have, that everyone is trying to make their fortune off the back of my wondrous poetry. Perhaps when I do, I’ll become paranoid and resort to taking potshots at the digital bogeyman.

In case readers of this blog are led to believe that I am somehow opposed to the distribution of literature on the Internet, they should know that I founded Jacket magazine in 1997, a free Internet-only literary magazine (now up to Issue 40) that has distributed about eight thousand pages of poetry, reviews, interviews and other literary work throughout the world without cost to the consumer. The material is made available without charge by the authors, and the home page has so far recorded over three quarter of a million visits.

I am also the founder of the APRIL project at april.edu.au, which has digitised over forty thousand Australian poems and secondary matter and which will soon be going on-line, again to a world audience, offering free viewing of all its archived material. The copyright in this material is managed by the Copyright Agency Limited.

Apart from that, my own web site at johntranter.com includes over a thousand pages of reviews, interviews, photos, and poems. It is free, and has been visited more than thirty thousand times.

But most people who are interested in poetry know all that. What they don’t always understand is the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended, which is very specific about the making of infringing works by digital copying, and the advertising and marketing of the same. The penalties are more severe than for non-digital copying. I am sorry that this material may seem boring, but if you want to understand the legal implications, they subsist in this text. Here is a small excerpt.

COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 – SECT 132AK Aggravated offence—work etc. converted to digital form              (1)  An indictable offence against a provision (the basic offence provision) of this Subdivision (except sections 132AL and 132AM) relating to an infringing copy is an aggravated offence if the infringing copy was made by converting a work or other subject‑matter from a hard copy or analog form into a digital or other electronic machine‑readable form.              (2)  An aggravated offence is punishable on conviction by a fine of not more than 850 penalty units or imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both. Note:          A corporation may be fined up to 5 times the amount of the maximum fine (see subsection 4B(3) of the Crimes Act 1914 ).              (3)  To prove an aggravated offence, the prosecution must prove that the defendant was reckless with respect to the circumstance that the infringing copy was made by converting a work or other subject‑matter from a hard copy or analog form into a digital or other electronic machine‑readable form. Note:          The prosecution must also prove all the physical and fault elements of the offence against the basic offence provision.              (4)  If the prosecution intends to prove an aggravated offence, the charge must allege that the infringing copy was made by converting a work or other subject‑matter from a hard copy or analog form into a digital or other electronic machine‑readable form.

COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 – SECT 132AM Advertising supply of infringing copy Summary offence              (1)  A person commits an offence if:                      (a)  the person, by any means, publishes, or causes to be published, an advertisement for the supply in Australia of a copy (whether from within or outside Australia) of a work or other subject‑matter; and                      (b)  the copy is, or will be, an infringing copy. Penalty:  30 penalty units or imprisonment for 6 months, or both. Location of supply of copy by communication resulting in creation of copy              (2)  For the purposes of this section, a communication of a work or other subject‑matter that, when received and recorded, will result in the creation of a copy of the work or other subject‑matter is taken to constitute the supply of a copy of the work or other subject‑matter at the place where the copy will be created.

“infringing copy" means:                      (a)  in relation to a work—a reproduction of the work, or of an adaptation of the work, not being a copy of a cinematograph film of the work or adaptation;                      (b)  in relation to a sound recording—a copy of the sound recording not being a sound‑track associated with visual images forming part of a cinematograph film;                      ©  in relation to a cinematograph film—a copy of the film;                      (d)  in relation to a television broadcast or a sound broadcast—a copy of a cinematograph film of the broadcast or a record embodying a sound recording of the broadcast; and                      (e)  in relation to a published edition of a work—a facsimile copy of the edition; being an article (which may be an electronic reproduction or copy of the work, recording, film, broadcast or edition) the making of which constituted an infringement of the copyright in the work, recording, film, broadcast or edition or, in the case of an article imported without the licence of the owner of the copyright, would have constituted an infringement of that copyright if the article had been made in Australia by the importer, but does not include:                       (f)  a non‑infringing book whose importation does not constitute an infringement of that copyright; or                      (g)  a non‑infringing accessory whose importation does not constitute an infringement of that copyright; or                      (h)  a non‑infringing copy of a sound recording whose importation does not infringe that copyright; or                       (i)  a non‑infringing copy of a computer program whose importation does not infringe that copyright; or                       (j)  a non‑infringing copy of an electronic literary or music item whose importation does not infringe that copyright.

John Tranter