Copyright Agency is taking the NSW Government to the Copyright Tribunal, claiming that for the past five years it had refused to pay a fair rate for using copyright material.

Copyright Agency is the body representing the copyright and licensing interests of thousands of authors, publishers, photographers, media and content creators.

Adam Suckling, CEO, Copyright Agency says, “The NSW Government is the only government in Australia refusing to pay a fair rate for using the copyright material of our members. For five years we have attempted to get the NSW Government to recognise the value in tens of millions of pages of author, publisher, researcher, photographer, cartoonist and journalist content.

“In this time, thousands of NSW executives and public servants have copied up to 200 million pages of copyright material without the appropriate approval or recompense for Australian creators.

“Over 200,000 NSW Government employees use and distribute copyright material – such as newspaper, magazine and journal articles, survey plans, photos and illustrations – in the course of their work every day.

“We are proud that this material provides an important input into serving the people of NSW – but we believe that our members should receive fair payment for use of this work.

“It is an accepted standard that governments pay a market rate to cover the use and sharing of copyright material and the use of such material is covered by the Copyright Agency licence.

“This refusal to pay a fair rate hurts Australian writers, journalists, cartoonists, photographers, publishers and visual artists, and harms their ability to invest, innovate and develop more, new Australian content.”

The Copyright Agency came under some heat earlier this year, when it was revealed it was re-purposing the copyright payments from orphan works, essentially works where the original author or copyright holder can not be found or identified, into a legal fund, as opposed to giving back to its members.

The Productivity Commission gave a strong rebuke over the transparency of its accounts and its practice of retaining, rather than returning, millions of dollars collected from schools and universities on behalf of the owners of orphan works.

While it has traditionally kept that money for four years before distributing it to its members, the commission wanted it returned to the schools and universities from which it was taken.

A Fairfax examination of its accounts showed that in a change not disclosed to the commission or to its members in annual reports, since 2013 it had been channelling that income into a fund set up to campaign against changes to the copyright law.

Between 2013 and 2016 the fund amassed $15.5 million, meaning the group has a strong financial backing in taking the NSW Government to tribunal.

Suckling says, “There is a simple win-win solution available, which is for NSW to come to a commercial agreement in line with the Commonwealth and all other state and territory governments.

“The unnecessary and undesirable alternative is for the Copyright Agency to represent its members rights in an expensive legal action which will waste a huge amount of public resources.

“The last such dispute between the NSW Government and the Copyright Agency took 10 years to conclude – in the Copyright Agency’s favour –  and cost millions of dollars.”

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