170. P Nightingale

From: Paul Nightingale 

SUBMISSION:

As an author and publisher of educational content, the Educational Statutory Licence Scheme (ESLS) is a vital contribution to my income. It provides 'equitable remuneration' for available work used by teachers and students. It is important, in that, it encourages educators like me to write and publish curriculum developed content for schools, students and parents.

I would be most disappointed if any change to this scheme was made to ESLS in relation to the reproduction of works such as text books, periodical articles and other copyright material presently covered by the Copyright Act 1968. It should be extended to include digital online works that provide educators, teachers and students with material they have not developed themselves for classroom or personal use.

As we move to the possible technology phase of content delivery via the internet, I was of the belief that copyright of this type of content would be partly  protected by the ESLS and 'equitable remuneration' 
would be included. From some report this may not be the case! The licencing scheme has not yet been amended for content rights to be protected under the Copyright Act 1968.

If on-line content is not to be monitored for use by educational institutions, teacher and students and equitable remuneration provided to creators via ESLS, authors and publishers would be reluctant to develop an on-line delivery of that content. It can not be seen as FREE by users just because the publisher has provided that content on-line. 
There must be equitable remuneration for use of that content.

As an author and publisher, to develop and change my hard copy content into a digital format for on-line delivery would be very costly for me. 
If the ESLS doesn't monitor the use of the on-line content under the Copyright Act 1968 with amendments, why would an author or publisher make this content available if there is no equitable remuneration? The standard of educational content would diminish and educational outcomes could also suffer.

While there is the option to licence content to registered individual users, there is a need to monitor general use of content in the public domain. Without equitable remuneration for content on-line, publisher and authors  will not develop relevant curriculum based content. The short of it all is that students would not have access or exposure to the latest developed content unless it was provided by governments free to end users. Please be aware that this would be far more expensive than payment of a fee under the ESLS, Copyright Act 1968 with an amendment for digital, on-line content.

It is vital that the Copyright Act 1968 be amended to include equitable remuneration for content developed by authors and published by Australia's educational publishers.  If this is not done, educational content, that is relevant to our nation's young will become second rate. 
Please look at including digital, on-line content part of the ESLS to help maintain educational standards in Australia.

Yours faithfully
Paul Nightingale (author)
Hunter Education (Primary school educational publisher)