What's it Really Worth

There’s an old saying about the labourer being worthy of their hire. The underlying philosophy being that payment should enable the worker to be adequately compensated for their efforts, no matter what section of the community they come from.

Compensation, wages, salary, consultancy fees are usually based around the potential return to the person or organisation doing the hiring. This is the law of effort and reward. If you’re capable of delivering what is asked then you may reasonably expect a reasonable return.

We often look at politicians and their compensation packages. Which seem to be (alright are) very skewed in their favour. When measured against the role and necessity to our nation of, for example, nurses and service personnel it does seem unfair.

Add to that the fact that wages have not kept pace with inflation and you will see that the standard of living for many is hard to maintain. Many in Australia now fall below the poverty line, the social fabric of families is being pushed to the limit and homelessness is not only disconcertingly high, it is rising! Funds for organisations that traditionally support the unfortunates are not only stretched, they are also declining.

So where do we go to get some relief from all of this? Firstly we need to become financially literate as did the generation who survived the great depression of the 1930’s, they became good stewards with their resources and when things turned around in the 1950’s were positioned to take advantage of the upswing.

Similarly many are now diversifying and laying the groundwork to not only stay ahead of any decline, they are preparing to take advantage of the next upswing.

There will be challenges such as the one highlighted below in a Bulletin of the Australian Society of Authors, but once again it can be turned to advantage by learning as those who faced the 30’s learned. The solution to changing economic times is to lean out and find other income sources. Major successful ventures start small before growing into strong and viable entities. No matter what the economic climate.

The commentary here only reflects on the authors. However there are many who are dependent on these very same authors works to make their businesses viable. It is an observation often made that the those who make influencing decisions often lack the vision to see the ‘big picture’ and it’s impact on the broader community.

A Prime Minister in the 90’s said ‘we need to become the clever country.’ Perhaps he had a crystal ball and was looking at 2015.

Competition Policy Review attacks Australian authors

The Competition Policy Review has put forward a proposal for reducing book ‘prices’ at the expense of local producers – in this case Australia’s authors.

The Review chaired by Ian Harper believes that the way to lower the cost of books is to remove parallel importation regulations. If this may reduce the cost of some imports, it will also destroy our authors’ territorial copyright in their books, and further compromise their capacity to earn from their work. Here are the facts:

Copyright

Almost all of the world’s nation-states have and maintain territorial copyright regimes. Intellectual property is governed by international treaties to which Australia is signatory and is also subject to our own national laws.

It is desperately naïve to believe that Australia can somehow absent itself from the world’s copyright practice, on the basis that price to an Australian customer matters more than anything else.

A book produced by an Australian author is protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Berne Convention, and the author gets to say what happens with it, whether online or off. Further, those who believe copyright has been disappeared by the internet should know that even Google relies on the international copyright regime to protect its intellectual property.

Authors’ incomes

Without any territorial restrictions, authors whose books have been licensed for sale in overseas territories will see excess copies dumped back into Australia, and sold without any payment to the author. Added to the piracy many are already experiencing, this will come as a further blow.

The real dollar investment made by local publishers in our authors will be undermined, making commercial support even less likely, with fewer writers finding backing among local publishers, fewer careers being launched, and fewer quality Australian stories finding their way into print.

Prices

The idea that the book is ‘expensive’ in Australia has been shown in previous rounds of this debate to be a furphy. The price of a book is already a moveable feast, as competition-led retailing provides a range of prices, online and in shops.

Australia’s book creators have no say over book prices so it is simply wrong to say they are ‘charging too much’ for their books. But royalty-free dumping of their books here will certainly reduce their chances of earning from sales of their work, or buying the time to write a new work.

Perhaps this approach appeals to the ‘let them starve’ views of government-salaried theorists, but screwing authors is no way to sustain a healthy writing scene, a strong Australian reading culture, or a vibrant educational sector.

Source: Australian Society of Authors