31st July 2013 Macmillan Education Australia Level 1, 15 Claremont Street South Yarra, Vic 3141 Response by Macmillan Education Australia to the ALRC Discussion Paper: and the Digital Economy’ ‘Copyright Australia’s statutory licence system is fair for educators and fair for content creators. Our existing system is unique in the world. For a minimal cost, teachers can source, copy and share an incredible range of material without worrying about copyright permissions. This means Australian students have unparalleled access to high quality educational resources – and at the same time, our creators are compensated. This, in turn helps further drive the creation of innovative, quality educational content and delivery systems. This exceptionally efficient and simple copyright licensing system which allows 259,000 teachers at 9,400 schools around the country to copy 1.2 billion pages of content every year without having to seek permission. The statutory licence enables educators to copy and share all material available to them, from small specialist educational publishers, to the larger publishers and from a variety Australia’s of other sources as they desire. The problem is, in recommending the contentious removal of the educational statutory licence system, the ALRC has ignored the teachers and licence’s major beneficiaries: educational content creators. The educational systems to which those teachers belong pay a flat annual fee for the use of the copyright. This equates to just under $17 per student per year, an amazingly cheap rate that allows copying of approximately 350 pages, per student, per year! That payment is collected by the government-appointed Copyright Agency and returned to the copyright owners. This system often takes the place of schools buying multiple copies of textbooks and
31st July 2013 Macmillan Education Australia Level 1, 15 Claremont Street South Yarra, Vic 3141 Response by Macmillan Education Australia to the ALRC Discussion Paper: ‘Copyright and the Digital Economy’ Australia’s statutory licence system is fair for educators and fair for content creators. Our existing system is unique in the world. For a minimal cost, teachers can source, copy and share an incredible range of material without worrying about copyright permissions. This means Australian students have unparalleled access to high quality educational resources – and at the same time, our creators are compensated. This, in turn helps further drive the creation of innovative, quality educational content and delivery systems. This exceptionally efficient and simple copyright licensing system which allows 259,000 teachers at 9,400 schools around the country to copy 1.2 billion pages of content every year without having to seek permission. The statutory licence enables educators to copy and share all material available to them, from Australia’s small specialist educational publishers, to the larger publishers and from a variety of other sources as they desire. The problem is, in recommending the contentious removal of the educational statutory licence system, the ALRC has ignored the licence’s major beneficiaries: teachers and educational content creators. The educational systems to which those teachers belong pay a flat annual fee for the use of the copyright. This equates to just under $17 per student per year, an amazingly cheap rate that allows copying of approximately 350 pages, per student, per year! That payment is collected by the government-appointed Copyright Agency and returned to the copyright owners. This system often takes the place of schools buying multiple copies of textbooks and