Platform Papers > Issue 22: COPYRIGHT, COLLABORATION

COPYRIGHT, COLLABORATION
and the Future of Dramatic Authorship

by Brent Salter

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Recent, very public disputes here and overseas involving eminent playwrights and their directors and dramaturgs have fuelled a chorus of commentary about the ‘ownership’ of a stage work. Are collaborators who contribute words or ideas to the development entitled to copyright protection and royalties from subsequent productions? Playwright Alana Valentine is opposed. It’s an incredibly-skilled job, she says. No matter how many minds are involved, ‘I take the risks. It’s my version. I typed it up, so it’s mine.’

Salter examines the complexities of reform and the limitations of the single-author ruling, citing the case of Company B Belvoir versus the Samuel Beckett estate, which demonstrated how the freedom to interpret is prescribed even after the author’s death. Under the current copyright regime, he concludes, industry-based customary agreements are a more productive way to sustain harmonious collaborative relationships.

Brent Salter is a Visiting Research Fellow at Macquarie University Law School. He has published extensively on the intersection between the law and the arts and next year will commence doctoral studies in the history of theatrical authorship. He has also been appointed the Legal Research Officer to the High Court of Australia for 2009–2010.