Copyright

In this week’s ABR Podcast, Frank Moorhouse biographer Matthew Lamb tells of his subject’s battle to defend Australian authors and the founding of Copyright Agency in 1974. Listen to Matthew Lamb with ‘Copyright and its discontents: Frank Moorhouse’s battle to defend authors’, published in the June issue of ABR.

It is only a coincidence that my book Frank Moorhouse: Strange paths, the first in a two-volume cultural biography of the Australian author, ends in 1974 – the same year that Copyright Agency was incorporated – and that it was published in time to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this incorporation. As Moorhouse himself always argued, such coincidences, chance happenings, and historical accidents are often far more important in shaping our culture than we like to concede.

The cover design for this book features a painting by Indigenous artist Johnny Bulun Bulun. It is an appropriate choice, given that it was this artist who in 1988 spearheaded the first major action in an Australian court against the unauthorised reproduction of Aboriginal works for commercial purposes, and in so doing set a precedent in establishing the existence of copyright in Aboriginal art. The case concerned the use of works of art on T-shirts. It was followed by one against the Reserve Bank of Australia, which had reproduced an Aboriginal image on the bicentennial $10 note without permission, and the famous ‘carpets case’ against a company that imported carpets made in Vietnam that contained some well-known Aboriginal artworks in their design.