There's a lot of work happening in the 'copyright industry' on your behalf. Mark Fitz-Gerald sheds some light on what's going on and what it means for your business. Mark is a board member VISCOPY Ltd. And a past National President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the AIPP. He will be talking in more detail on this subject at the AIPP convention to be held on Sydney in May.

A LITTLE HISTORY
Most of us grew up at school with the poetry of great Australian poets like Judith Wright, writers who are Australian icons. There aren't too many of us who don't recognise Australia as 'this wide brown land'. Before photocopiers we had to buy poetry books so the poet made money through the sale of the book.

Wholesale photocopying of all sorts of written work returned no value to the publisher or the writer. Whilst we were happy to teach our children about these wonderful writers, learn their poems and raise the cultural value of their work to legend, the writers and poets themselves were going broke.

To fix this the government of the day set up a 'secondary licensing' scheme which basically gave educational institutions the right to copy works without permission provided they paid a fee. CAL (Copyright Agency Ltd) was set up to collect the fee and to distribute the money to the owners of copyright in the articles, poems and books that were copied.

Only organisations covered by the special statutory licence are exempt from the normal process of seeking the copyright owner's permission to copy work, and they have to pay to do it.

Last year CAL collected about $25 million in fees. This is real money.

There is another statutory licence administered by Screenrights. It covers film and TV programs, which are taped off air for educational purposes. The principal is the same. A fee is paid and the monies distributed to owners of the copyrights in film. Currently of the 100% which is available to be distributed 68.5% goes to the film's producer, 22.1% to copyright holder in the script, 7.4% to for musical works and 2% for sounding recordings of musical works.

So you can see if you're a script writer or writer of music you get a little money back every time a copy is made for educational purposes. This is quite separate from whatever (primary) licences apply to the sale and distribution of the film.

"..the only major group missing out has been visual artists."

ENTER VISCOPY
It's pretty clear by now I hope that the only major group that has been missing out of all of this has been visual artists. This group includes sculptors, designers, cartoonists, painters and photographers etc.

Iconic works like Nolan's Ned Kelly or David Moore's photo of Harold Holt and LBJ that form part of Australia's visual history (in the same way 'the wide brown land' is part of our written history) have no doubt been endlessly copied without reward to the creators. This has now changed.

VISCOPY was set up to collect monies on behalf of visual authors. In similar schemes overseas photographers are the major beneficiaries of such schemes. That's because of the wide spread use of photography. So if you don't own your copyright, if you give it away, who gets the money?

Not you. The person or company you gave it to is the potential beneficiary.

What's happening now?

VISCOPY doesn't hold the right to administer secondary licences in the same way Screenrights and CAL does, it has to negotiate the visual artist's share from these two companies which it then distributes.

Needless to say the bigger VISCOPY's constituency the better chance it has of success in these negotiations. That's why AIPP, ACMP, AGDA, the Black and White Artists Association (cartoonists) and many others have all thrown their weight behind VISCOPY who are the visual art specialists.

VISCOPY is currently negotiating with Screenrights for a share of the money due to visual authors when film and TV programs are copied. Screenrights are being very cooperative, but these are tough negotiations, there's a lot of money at stake and all the interest groups want their proper share.

As an interim Screenrights have paid VISCOPY about $180,000 to cover the years from 1991 to 1999. Depending on the outcome of current negotiations this may well increase. The money, less VISCOPY's admin fee (typically 25%) is then distributed to visual authors whose work has been identified in the copied programs. The money will be distributed this financial year.

VISCOPY is also negotiating with CAL in the same way. This is because at the same time AIPP and ACMP (aided by VISCOPY and the Copyright Council of Australia) won changes to the copyright law for photographers, we also won the right to have visual artists share in the fee payable when a photocopy is made under a statutory licence. Visual artists now have an income stream from secondary rights copying.

Where a visual work accompanies the text copied the fee is shared 50:50 with the copyright owner of the text. This is worth real money. The CAL negotiations aren't going as well as those with Screenrights but in the end the money collected will be paid to visual authors.

THE COPYRIGHT INDUSTRY
Whether you like it or not you're part of it. Every time you use your skills to create a photograph the moment you press the shutter you create copyright in the image, and it has a monetary value.

So how do we use it? How do we make sure this aspect of our income simply doesn't slip away?

The only way is to improve your business skills. Make sure you understand your place in the copyright industry and the effects of not participating.

Someone will get the value you have built into your work. Quite rightly your client will get the 'primary purpose value' but as I hope you now understand there's a lot more built into those pictures of yours than a simple sale.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO NEXT?
If you produce a lot of pictures which are published or held as stock or perhaps even used directly in the educational market you should join VISCOPY as a secondary rights member. It's free and being a member means if monies are due to you you'll be paid. Non members can't be paid. Being a member won't have any effect on how you licence your work or use it for stock.

You should also try wherever you can to make sure your name appears with your work so it can be identified if it's copied. It's not always easy but you should try, because if your work can't be identified you can't be paid.

You should work hard on your business skills. It's all very well taking great pictures, but if you can't negotiate their true value you'll be working like mad but not making the sort of money that will ensure you can have a life in photography as opposed to just a brief visit.

Because it may be hard for you to see other value in your pictures now doesn't mean it's not there. Don't wait a lifetime to realise the value of your work. Act on it now.

VISCOPY Ltd.

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