This year for the third year in a row, Black Inc. is reprinting writing from HEAT in one of its ‘Best Australian’ anthologies, without seeking my permission as the magazine’s editor and publisher. They can do this because there is a legal loophole in Australia’s literary culture – literary magazines in this country do not normally have contracts with their authors. It is conventional to ask magazine editors for their permission before reprinting work that has appeared in their pages; but the fact is, if the author’s permission can be won it is entirely irrelevant, from a legal point of view what the magazine editor thinks.

There are practical reasons why literary magazines do not normally place their authors under contract. With the limited resources available, the additional administrative burden of handling contracts with up to 100 authors a year is not a prospect an editor willingly entertains. But there is a more important reason why this part of the literary world has remained open and unregulated. The relationship between magazine editor and writer is one based on trust, loyalty and a commitment to shared intellectual or aesthetic ideals. It is not primarily a commercial relationship.