PREFACE

This book arises from a conference that I convened along with Benedict Atkinson at Old Parliament House in Canberra.

The conference was held near to the day of the 40th anniversary of the commencement of the Australian Copyright Act of 1968.1

Ben Atkinson’s work – The True History of Copyright – had encouraged me to assemble key figures in Australian copyright history at Old Parliament House to discuss the past, present and future of copyright law.

I am thankful to the presenters for their generosity and insights and to the enthusiastic participants for making the conference a lively forum of discussion.

I am also thankful to the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCi) and QUT (my home institutions) for supporting the conference and the many people who helped make the conference a success including Ben Atkinson, Tanya Butkovsky, Anne Fitzgerald, Steven Gething, Rami Olwan, Elliott Bledsoe, Kylie Pappalardo, Xiao-Xiang Shi and Nic Suzor. A special thank you to Ruth Bell of the Ngunnawal people for her Welcome to Country.

While I had high hopes that this would be an interesting event I had not anticipated the excitement that the conference would generate.

The essays we have collected in this volume are only a selection of what was on offer. We trust that you will enjoy them.

Professor Brian Fitzgerald
Brisbane
October 2010