As some patrons will know, EU copyright laws have been much more restrictive than Australian ones in relation to Joyce. When Australian copyright law changed from the British system to the American one (from 50 years after the author's death to 70 years - to protect Disney), they were not retrospective, so we have enjoyed the freedom to perform Joyce since our inception. It became a problem when we performed in Dublin in 2004 and we had to do some rewriting of a play in order to conform with the copyright laws pertaining in Dublin. The grandson was terrorising Joyceans by taking copyright infringers to court. We made the necessary adjustments, and took our own little revenge, but were very happy to restore the Joyce in 2005 when we reprised Her Singtime Sung in Melbourne. Our Australianised Joyce was clever and witty, but Joyce is those things, and more benign than we could be in our 'translation'.
It's of great moment in the Joyce universe when the copyright formally came off on 1 Jan 2012, and we re-Joyce with our Dublin colleagues that they can have the freedoms we've revelled in for years. We are looking forward to seeing what will happen this year in the heart of the Hibernian metropolis.
The matter of unpublished manuscripts remains a grey area, and it was sad to see a superb digital edition of the Pola Notebooks, intended for digital distribution, not able to be sold or made available outside the National Library of Ireland when we visited in 2004 because of the legal situation.
I note with interest an article in today's Irish Times on this subject. Doubtless the legal scuffles will continue, but let's hope sanity prevails. Joyce belongs to the world, not just to his family and to publishers who have proven only too ready to cash in.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for entering the conversation with Bloomsday in Melbourne.