Archives and Copyright: Risk and Reform

This paper considers the place of the archive sector within the copyright regime, and how copyright impacts upon the preservation, access to, and use of archival holdings. It begins with a critical assessment of the current parameters of the UK copyright regime as it applies to the work of archivists, including recommendations for reform that have followed in the wake of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property (2006-2010), the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth (2010-2011), the Consultation on Copyright (2011-12), as well as the government’s response thereto: Modernising Copyright (2012). It considers the various problems the copyright regime presents for archives undertaking mass digitisation projects as well as recent European and UK initiatives in this domain. It argues that the UK copyright regime, even when read in conjunction with current national and regional recommendations for reform, falls short of delivering a legal framework that would enable archivists to realise the full potential that comprehensive, universal online access to the country’s archival holdings would contribute to local and national democracy and accountability, to education, learning, and culture, and to the sense of identity and place for local people, communities and organisations. Ultimately, a case is made for the differential treatment of archives within the copyright regime – different, that is, from libraries and other related institutions operating within the cultural sector. The paper concludes with a policy recommendation that would greatly enhance the ability of archives to provide online access to their holdings, while at the same time safeguarding the economic interests of the authors and owners of copyright-protected work.

Civil service reform : development of 1978 civil service reform proposals : transcript of a seminar held jointly by GAO and the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Services, Post Office, and Civil Service on March 31, 1988 /

"GAO/GGD-89-18."

Unemployment insurance : comments on HR. 3896, the Unemployment Compensation Reform Act of 1990 /

"February 22, 1990."

A study of the effects of the Comprehensive Occupational Safety and Health Reform Act (H.R. 1280).

"April 1994."

Public internet access revisited

In recent years the Australian government has dedicated considerable project funds to establish public Internet access points in rural and regional communities. Drawing on data from a major Australian study of the social and economic impact of new technologies on rural areas, this paper explores some of the difficulties rural communities have faced in setting up public access points and sustaining them beyond their project funding. Of particular concern is the way that economic sustainability has been positioned as a measure of the success of such ventures. Government funding has been allocated on the basis of these rural public access points becoming economically self-sustaining. This is problematic on a number of counts. It is therefore argued that these public access points should be reconceptualised as essential community infrastructure like schools and libraries, rather than potential economic enterprises. Author Keywords: Author Keywords: Internet; Public access; Sustainability; Digital divide; Rural Australia

Access all

Access All was performance produced following a three-month mentorship in web-based performance that I was commissioned to conduct for the performance company Igneous. This live, triple-site performance event for three performers in three remote venues was specifically designed for presentation at Access Grid Nodes - conference rooms located around the globe equipped with a high end, open source computer teleconferencing technology that allowed multiple nodes to cross-connect with each other. Whilst each room was setup somewhat differently they all deployed the same basic infrastructre of multiple projectors, cameras, and sound as well as a reconfigurable floorspace. At that time these relatively formal setups imposed a clear series of limitations in terms of software capabilities and basic infrastructure and so there was much interest in understanding how far its capabilities might be pushed.----- Numerous performance experiments were undertaken between three Access Grid nodes in QUT Brisbane, VISLAB Sydney and Manchester Supercomputing Centre, England, culminating in the public performance staged simultaneously between the sites with local audiences at each venue and others online. Access All was devised in collaboration with interdisciplinary performance company Bonemap, Kelli Dipple (Interarts curator, Tate Modern London) and Mike Stubbs British curator and Director of FACT (Liverpool).----- This period of research and development was instigated and shaped by a public lecture I had earlier delivered in Sydney for the ‘Global Access Grid Network, Super Computing Global Conference’ entitled 'Performance Practice across Electronic Networks'. The findings of this work went on to inform numerous future networked and performative works produced from 2002 onwards.