As a novelist and film-maker, and advisor to a singer-songwriter son heavily involved in the music industry here in Australia as well as internationally, copyright is a subject near and dear to my heart. I’ve learned from bitter experience that the golden rule for any creative is ‘hold on to copyright as long as you can’. When I wrote my first film script I found the first thing most producers wanted me to do was assign them copyright in the script, and managers and music labels signing up aspiring rock stars are always looking to slip into their agreements clauses giving them a healthy piece of any copyright action that’s on offer. That’s because when it comes to the business of the arts, copyright means control.
