Screenrights has made a submission in response to the Federal Government’s consultation on a new National Cultural Policy for the arts, entertainment and cultural sectors.
Screenrights welcomes the opportunity to help shape Australia’s National Cultural Policy. You can read our short submission here.
A central tenet of our work is to support growth and diversity in the screen production sector. We outlined the ways in which our statutory licenses support both the education sector (though affordable and easy access to screen content), and filmmakers (by ensuring their content can be seen in classrooms). The royalties which we collect from schools and return to local filmmakers are reinvested into the development of new Australian content.
We made the point that we support a strong copyright framework so creators and their collaborators receive fair remuneration for their work, and that new local content can continue to be developed. We also emphasised that we do not support proposed legislative changes to copyright put forward by the previous Government, which if enacted as drafted, would place Australia in breach of its international treaty obligations and cause irreparable harm to the creative industries.
