|
As often as not, in the past there has been no representation on behalf of the musical world in Australia when issues affecting it arise, because there has been no organisation that takes responsibility for the whole of music rather than small sections of it. Music has been the loser.
MCA is taking on the role of music's advocate. In some instances it collaborates with other national bodies – whether music organisations with a special focus such as choral music, ArtsPeak, the national alliance of arts service and advocacy organisations, the Australian Coalition for Cultural Diversity, or international organisations.
Some advocacy is reactive, responding to events in the world such as initiatives by governments or the bureaucracy. Some advocacy is proactive: the Music Council perceives a need and takes a decision to advocate change.
Current advocacy projects
These documents require Adobe PDF reader software to be
installed on your computer before they can be viewed.
Download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software here.
The Commonwealth Shadow Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett MP, invited submissions to inform a new Labor Party arts policy. The Music Council of Australia made a fairly comprehensive submission, which summarises its current position on an array of issues concerning musical development in Australia.
Click here to read the submission.
September 1 2005
The Music Council has made this submission to relevant Federal Ministers and their opposition counterparts, prior to a vote by the General Assembly of UNESCO in October 2005.
The Australian government has recognized the value of the arts to Australian society and has acknowledged that, especially in Australia’s demographic and geographic circumstances, government support through subsidy, regulation and tax concessions is necessary to sustain Australian creative resources.
This policy has guided Australian negotiations under GATS and in, for instance, its Free Trade Agreement with Singapore, where culture has been excluded from trade liberalisation initiatives. However, the policy did not survive in the context of the FTA with the USA, where serious limitations were imposed on the Australian government’s right to support Australian culture, especially in the area of new media.
Of particular concern is the reservation which (in theory) allows Australia to regulate new (literally ‘interactive’) media to ensure adequate access to Australian content. The reservation imposes so many constraints and conditions that it may preclude any attempt by an Australian government to implement it.
The threat extends beyond AUSFTA and new media. It is an objective of the WTO to phase out all subsidies. If realised, this would be a disastrous blow to Australian culture.
An Australian government truly committed to the protection and development of Australian culture will support the proposed UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Convention presents a normative instrument which will give some shelter to governments that seek to retain the right to support their own cultures even while giving energetic support to the liberalisation of trade in other sectors.
The obligations imposed by the Convention are not onerous. For the most part, it reserves the right for governments to act, or encourages various types of action in support of cultural diversity. The entire document seems to sit comfortably with current practices in the cultural realm by the Australian government.
There are abundant reasons for Australia to support the Convention and no apparent substantive reasons for its opposition.
To read the full submission, please click here.
The Commonwealth Attorney-General instigated a review, Fair Use and Other Copyright Exceptions, and invited submissions. The review resulted in part from the passage of the Australia United States Free Trade Agreement and the concomitant consideration of whether to introduce the US ‘Fair Use’ regime for managing ‘exceptions’ to copyright law to replace the Australian ‘Fair Dealing’ system. The review also wished to consider a number of other matters including the proposal to introduce a blank media levy to reimburse copyright owners whose earnings had been damaged by illegal digital copying of their copyright property.
The Music Council made a submission to the review in June 2005. The submission attempts to find common ground among the sometimes conflicting interests of its very diverse membership. Generally, this is achieved by accepting the more urgent concerns of the main stake-holders insofar as they do not breach the equally urgent concerns of others. For instance, the submission supports the desire of libraries to increase the digitisation of collections for preservation and storage purposes and to support enhanced public access to digital copies by using licence agreements, but would not support any plan for their public dissemination of unlicensed and unremunerated digital copies because that conflicts strongly with the interests of copyright owners.
The submission covers these matters:
1. FAIR USE VS FAIR DEALING
2. TIME-SHIFTING TELEVISION AND RADIO BROADCASTS, INCLUDING UNDERLYING WORKS, FILMS, SOUND RECORDING AND LIVE PERFORMANCES
Format-shifting
Back-up copying
3. BLANK MEDIA LEVY
4. THE ACTIVITIES OF LIBRARIES AND LIKE INSTITUTIONS
Preservation
Storage and Collection Management
Access and Dissemination
5. ORPHAN WORKS
To read the submission, click here.
This submission is made in the knowledge that an expert review team has been employed for an extended period in researching the practice of music education in Australia and abroad. It therefore has not been thought necessary to provide extensive references, although these are present where there is a possibility that new knowledge is being added. We would be happy to substantiate points made here, upon request of the review team.
This submission deals with the following issues:
The context for change
The broad relevance of, and benefits accruing from a school music education: individual, institutional, national/economic
The need for universal provision and the essential role of schools
The need for expert teachers and teacher training
Approaches that might elevate music among the curriculum choices of school systems
Specific issues around the effective inclusion of music in the school program
Cultural diversity in the community requires diversity of choice in music education, carrying forward the heritage and creating the future
The need for school programs to interact with the community and recognise that school age children may also receive music education in the community
The need for community support
The website for the Review is www.schoolmusicreview.edu.au
To read the Music Council April 2005 submission, click here
The royalty rate paid by the radio broadcast industry to record companies and recording artists in return for the right to broadcast the music recordings in which they hold copyright has been capped at 1% of revenues since the inception of the relevant Act in 1968. The cap was justified at the time by perceived special circumstances in the broadcasting industry, now unknown and most unlikely to apply. The rates paid overseas in comparable countries range from 1.75% to more than 4%. The rate paid in Australia for the right to broadcast musical works is 3.5%.
The Music Council accepts the position of the record companies and recording artists that the cap should be removed, allowing commercial negotiation of an acceptable rate.
It does so for two main reasons:
to afford commercial equity and justice to the copyright owners
to provide funds to the record industry and to recording artists which can be re-invested in the production of recordings of Australian musical works and performers.
The Review is being carried out by the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, which issued a discussion paper that can be read on www.ag.gov.au
The Music Council made its submission in March 2005. To read the full submission, click here
The Music Council of Australia made this submission to the Department of Communications Information Technology and the Arts concerning issues around the introduction of digital radio in Australia. The Department released an issues paper which placed heavy emphasis on a discussion of the possible technologies. The Music Council's submission noted that the technologies are but a means to an end, and should serve the main objectives which are social and cultural.
The MCA takes a keen interest in matters related to radio broadcasting, given that music provides the primary content for the majority of radio services, and radio is the medium that probably offers the greatest public access to music.
The MCA identified three broadcasting priorities
Diversity: That a diversity of music content should be available through radio broadcasting
Australian music: That all radio services should achieve a specified minimum percentage, or better, broadcast content of Australian music.
National and community broadcasting: That national and community broadcasters are adequately accommodated in all spectrum planning and are appropriately resourced by government
The MCA noted the government’s policy principles in relation to the development of digital radio, in particular
That digital radio should promote enhanced quality and diversity of services currently enjoyed in Australia
That digital radio services should be available to all Australians regardless of where they live
That given the promise of new and innovative services offered by the technology, the development of new services is encouraged
That the government will continue to work with the community radio sector in the development of digital radio and is committed to the inclusion of community broadcasters in the digital environment.
The MCA noted also the absence in these principles of an explicit commitment to ensuring that digital radio services uphold the objective of the Broadcasting Services Act of "developing and reflecting a sense of Australian identity, character and cultural diversity" and urged that such a commitment be incorporated into the consideration of digital radio services.
The MCA's submission was prepared by its Radio Committee and submitted in April 2005.
To read the submission, click here
Proposed Free Trade Agreement with Malaysia
The Music Council of Australia has taken a keen interest in the effects of globalisation and international trade on local culture, and has been actively involved in informing and advising government during trade negotiations under the WTO and with the USA. Its very detailed submission concerning those negotiations can be read in the PAST ADVOCACY DOCUMENTS section of this Music Council website.
The Free Trade Agreement with the USA has seriously curtailed the Australian Government’s prerogative to support Australian culture by regulation especially as new media emerge and become more dominant, the government’s freedom to act will be further circumscribed by the very weak reservation in the AUSFTA concerning ‘interactive media’.
Click here for commentary.
Especially with this example in mind, the Music Council is most concerned that the AUSFTA should not become a template for trade agreements under the WTO or with other countries or regions.
Given its past submissions with regard to GATS and the US FTA, the Council did not recapitulate in this submission the arguments for the need to regard culture as not just another good or service to be traded. One of humanity’s fundamental needs is to find an identity and a sense of belongingness. It is through our culture, above all, that such an identity is articulated – as is recognised in various government documents such as the charters of the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the Australia Council for the Arts. Its expression should not be sacrificed to the trade ambitions of other countries.
The Music Council of Australia therefore strongly urged that culture should be totally excluded from any trade agreement with ASEAN or Malaysia. It urged that a line should be drawn under the AUSFTA and no more undertakings concerning culture should be given in any subsequent free trade agreement.
The submissions concerning ASEAN (February 2005) and Malaysia (October 2004) were very similar. You can read the submission for the ASEAN agreement by clicking here
If you would like to see the Malaysia submission, contact the Music Council
|
