Chapter 1 - Introduction

Background

1.1       On 11 May 2005, the Senate referred the provisions of the Copyright Amendment (Film Directors' Rights) Bill 2005 (the Bill) to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 9 August 2005.

1.2       The Bill seeks to amend the Copyright Act 1968 (the Copyright Act) to provide for film directors to be joint copyright owners of their films, along with producers, for the purposes of the retransmission statutory licence in Part VC of the Copyright Act. This will allow directors to share in remuneration for the retransmission by pay-TV networks of films included in free-to-air broadcasts.

Conduct of the inquiry

1.3       The committee advertised the inquiry in The Australian newspaper on 18 and 25 May 2005, and invited submissions by 3 June 2005. Details of the inquiry, the Bill, and associated documents were placed on the committee's website. The committee also wrote to 19 organisations and individuals.

1.4       The committee received 11 submissions which are listed at Appendix 1. Submissions were placed on the committee's website for ease of access by the public.

1.5       The committee held a public hearing in Sydney on 8 July 2005. A list of witnesses who appeared at the hearing is at Appendix 2 and copies of the Hansard transcript are available through the Internet at http://aph.gov.au/hansard.

Acknowledgement

1.6       The committee thanks those organisations and individuals who made submissions and gave evidence at the public hearing.

Note on references

1.7       References in this report are to individual submissions as received by the committee, not to a bound volume. References to the committee Hansard are to the proof Hansard: page numbers may vary between the proof and the official Hansard transcript.

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