Jeremy Fisher

Rick Stein at Bannister's

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:28:00 +0000

Recently, my partner and I were in Mollymook on the South Coast of New South Wales and decided to have a meal at Rick Stein at Bannister's. Rick Stein is an English chef who has had some success with television series. He appears to specialise in seafood.
We arrived at the restaurant on time and we were shown to our table. My seat was faced away from the view and my partner's seat was on a banquette running along the back of the room. The table was set out as one would expect of a restaurant claiming to offer top of the range service and food.
The service was attentive. We had menus and water -- just tap water; we refrained from the Rick Stein carbonated water -- within moments, along with a small bowl of olives. I ordered a sauvignon blanc ($42).
The first intimation that all was not well was when the wine waiter brought a bottle of riesling. It was not even from the same vineyard as the sauvignon blanc I had ordered. It was quickly replaced however.
We'd both ordered oysters as entrees -- my partner half a dozen natural, while I ordered a speciality that cost extra but came with chili sausages. A big fuss was made of placing pillowed plates before the both of us, this being necessary, we were told, as the oysters were served on a platter of ice.
Indeed, that is the way my partner's entree was served. Mine was not, requiring the removal of the pillowed plate. Also, I questioned the fact that I had only five oysters. I was told my dish comes with only five, despite having a higher price than half a dozen.
Anyway, the oysters were fine, as they should have been for the price ($24 and $27).
I'd ordered the fish pie and my partner barramundi (both around $40). The fish pie was disappointing. It consisted of two prawns, two scallops and bits of fish placed in a soup bowl, covered with a sauce (pleasant enough but lacking wow factor) and bread crumbs, then grilled. My partner found the barra ordinary, even the mash mixed with broad beans and peas. The dishes were edible, but expensive, we felt. We also had a green leaf salad, which was unremarkable
This happens at restaurants from time to time. Dishes don't live up to their potential.
We decided to end with a cheese platter, a port (for me), a Baileys (for my partner) and coffee.
Here is where the restaurant went from disappointing to annoying. The coffee and drinks, along with petits fours, came out and were placed on the table within moments of being ordered. We protested we had cheese to come. The waiter, to his credit, made inquiries, but the cheese failed to emerge for another seventeen minutes, just as we were about to cancel it. We were served the cheese with apologies and the advice that, if we wanted it before our coffee, we should have specified that.
Hmmm. I have never been served coffee before cheese anywhere else in the world.
Our conclusions? Very ordinary service and food.

The Creativity Market

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:25:00 +0000

The Creativity Market, edited by Dominique Hecq, will be published in March 2012. My chapter in the book is titled "The publishing paradigm: Commercialism versus creativity".

Antipodes: "In a Vietnamese cafe on Rosa Luxemburg Strasse"

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 03:21:00 +0000

My creative non-fiction work "In a Vietnamese cafe on Rosa Luxemburg Strasse" will be appear in the December issue of Antipodes.

Where do you think you are? Writing Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:06:00 +0000

Arts New England: Centre for Research and Innovation in the Arts will be presenting a symposium on 15 November, 2011, to consider the development of an Australian identity in and through Writing (defined as a process of creativity unlimited by form, linearity or mode). The symposium will explore a range of ways in which Australian writing has evolved and is evolving.

Guest speakers include:

Angelo Loukakis, Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors, has worked as a teacher, scriptwriter, editor and publisher. He is the author of the fiction titles For the Patriarch, Vernacular Dreams, Messenger, and The Memory of Tides. He has also written a number of non-fiction works, including most recently a book of the SBS television series Who Do You Think You Are? His collection of short stories, For the Patriarch, was winner of a New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award. Angelo Loukakis is a past member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and chair of the New South Wales Writers’ Centre. He has taught writing, publishing and editing subjects at UTS and the Australian Catholic University. His latest novel, Houdini’s Flight, was released in 2010.

Lisa Heidke, author of Lucy Springer gets even (2009), What Kate did next (2010), and Claudia’s big break (2011). Lisa will speak on the challenges of writing chick-lit.

Sophie Masson, Chair of the Australian Society of Authors and former member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts and author of more than fifty novels for young people. A graduate of UNE, Sophie is published in many countries. In 2011 her historical novel, The Hunt for Ned Kelly, won the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, while her alternative history novel, The Hand of Glory, won the Young Adult category of the 2002 Aurealis Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has also had many books shotrtlisted for various awards, written several novels for adults, and four thrillers for teenagers under the pen-name of Isabelle Merlin. Her short stories and essays have also been extensively published, in print journals in Australia, the UK, USA, and online in many different publications and blogs. Sophie will speak on French-Australian identity

Papers for the symposium are sought on the following themes:

Context and environment

· Indigenous matters

· Censorship, legal, moral and ethical problems

· Expatriate writing

· Outside looking in, or inside looking out: other tongues and accents

· Syllabus studies

· Historiography

Industries, products and production

· Publishing and its products

· Writing and new media

· Popular culture – newspapers, magazines, pulp fiction, TV/film, music, theatre

· Careers

Processes

· Individual/collaborative/community

· Technology

· Shapes/forms/structures

Modes/Genres

· Biography/Romance/Horror/Crime etc.

· Narratives without words

· Professional writing

· Advertising/Public relations

In the first instance, submit a 300 word abstract of your proposed paper by 17 October to Dr Jeremy Fisher jfishe23@une.edu.au

After Homosexual: The legacies of gay liberation

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:20:00 +0000

I will be presenting a paper that further explores my research into the emergence of overt homosexual narrative in Australia at the After Homosexual: The legacies of gay liberation conference at La Trobe University in February 2012. The conference celebrates the work of Professor Dennis Altman and recognises the 40th anniversary of the publication of his landmark work Homosexual: Oppression and liberation. I'm looking forward to contributing to this important event.

Australasian Association of Writing Programs Conference, 23-25 November 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:13:00 +0000

I'll be attending and presenting a paper at the Australasian Association of Writing Programs conference at Byron Bay in November 2011. This is a wonderful conference for writing educators, and I'm looking forward to catching up with colleagues and having stimulating conversations about writing. My paper traces the emergence of overt male homosexual narrative in Australiam literature from the emergence of the sexual liberations movement and legalisation of homosexuality in the late 1960s and early 1970s (at least in some Australian states) to the present.

5th National Editors Conference, Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:05:00 +0000

I spoke on a panel on copyright at the 5th National Editors Conference in Sydney on 8 September 2011. I mentioned that digital and e-books have the potential to give authors an increased share of royalties. Allen & Unwin, for instance, is offering 50% royalties for backlist, out-of-print titles whose rights are held by authors' estates. Royalty rates for e-books are slowly climbing from the initial low figures offered by traditional publishers as it is clear that new competitors such as Amazon, Google and Apple can work with models that offer authors a greater proportion of returns from e-books. It's even more important then that authors retain control of their digital rights.

Lisa Heidke Claudia's big break

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:35:00 +0000

In Lisa Heidke's Claudia's big break (ISBN9781742374918) Claudia, just about to turn 39, is sent off to Greece by her boss, Marcus. She's supposed to deliver a jump drive and some papers to his partner, Con, in Athens, then she can have two weeks holiday, paid for by Marcus. She decides to take along two old friends, Tara and Sophie. Sophie has a young son, Levi, who accompanies them.

When the girls set off from Brisbane, she encounters a hunky young man, Jack from Yackandandah, at the airport and it turns out he's going to Greece as well.

Well, that's how it starts. But Claudia's been bonking the married (but separated) Marcus on the side, Con is a con, and Marcus's business is going down the tube. Not that any of that's apparent as our girls whirl into Athens and party like they were eighteen again.

Claudia sets out to find Con and deliver her goods, but she winds up in a dodgy place and a little messed around.

No matter, Santorini is next on the agenda, and who should be there but Jack. He ends up placing Claudia in handcuffs and marching her off to a Greek police station, because he's really a private eye hired by Marcus's wife to find out the truth.

Meanwhile, Marcus has deposited $20,000 into Claudia's bank account and as she is so in debt to her credit cards, it looks like she's (almost) free of debt at last (some of it inherited from a former boyfriend George who left her in the lurch -- Claudia's life ain't lucky).

Then Tara is on with the English lawyer Angie and Sophie's husband Alex arrives ...

Phew! Yes, this is breathless Heidke territory again. Fun, and funny. She sends up thirtysomethings something terrible, but not cruelly. Claudia is her own worst enemy, and she knows it.

By the end of the book, it is not clear that she and Jack are going to get it on (they do get it on once in the book, but Jack kind of wrecks that with his handcuff trick -- not that it wouldn't have worked at the right time), but at least they are friends.

Friendship is the strength of this book. Claudia, Tara and Sophie are old school and university friends. They know each other well and love and support each other. In less refined hands, they could have remained bimbos, but Heidke loves her characters, too, though she know their foibles and pretensions well.

Ethics and life writing

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:58:00 +0000

Life writing requires some ethical considerations. Many of these will be covered in the course ENCO309/509 Writing non-fiction: Interpreting the truth that I will teach in second semester 2012.

Author! Author!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:59:00 +0000

Author! Author! from Australian Society of Authors on Vimeo.

The business of being a writer

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 23:49:00 +0000

The business of being a successful author–what you don’t see but need to know.

A one-day workshop with Jeremy Fisher on everything to do with getting published. These are things you need to know well in advance of even trying to get published! The workshop will look at the business side of writing. Some of the issues to be covered will include:

Understanding the market and opportunities for survival as a professional writer
Some suggested work methods to establish consistent writing practices
Record-keeping and basic business practices
Writing as a business - extending your options
Legal and ethical issues related to earning income as a writer (copyright, defamation, contracts, rights, use of third party material)
Practices in publishing houses and how to interpret and understand them
What are legitimate expenses involved in earning income from writing and how they can be claimed
Marketing yourself as a professional writer
Embracing the digital universe
Getting up when you get knocked down again: Surviving rejection
Persisting

DATE: Saturday 25 June, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
VENUE: NEWC
COST: $55 members / $65 non-members

Music from another Country reviewed

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:01:00 +0000

Music from another Country has been reviewed on Good Reads by Hazel Edwards. Read the review here.

Robert Barnard: Death of an old goat

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 23 May 2011 06:13:00 +0000

Colleagues recommended I read Robert Barnard’s Death of an old goat (ISBN 0-00-231198-4, Collins Crime Club, 1974). The book features a thinly disguised University of New England – Drummondale University in the book – and perhaps some of the staff of the English department are also ciphers. Barnard apparently spent some time teaching at UNE’s Armidale campus in the early 1970s. The references to the menace of Whitlam from some members of the squattocracy support this. The book itself was published in 1974.

It’s a pretty poor whodunit, more of an excuse for the author to lampoon almost all his characters. The only one who escapes with some dignity – but not much of it – is the temporary English lecturer Alice O’Brien. The rest of them, including the police, seem to dissolve into a nauseating mixture of beer, rough red wine and sherry.

Did Barnard not enjoy his sojourn in Armidale? This poorly constructed, nasty book suggests not.

Wladimir Kaminer: Russian Disco

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 02 May 2011 23:33:00 +0000

My review of Russian Disco by Wladimir Kaminer is available here.

Elisabeth Holdsworth Those who come after

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:42:00 +0000

A map of the Dutch province of Zeeland, in the south on the Belgian border, at the beginning of Elisabeth Holdsworth’s Those who come after (Picador, ISBN 978-1-4050-4050-1) alerts readers that this is a book with a rich history. Zeeland may be a backwater these days, but once it was the place from which the Royal Dutch East India Company sailed. These ships were the first from Europe to sight New Zealand and Van Dieman’s land, or Tasmania, these names all relics of that Dutch entrepreneurship.

Elisabeth Holdsworth is well aware of the history of Zeeland. She spent her early life there before migrating with her parents to Australia in 1959. I came to Australia with my parents from New Zealand in 1964. My family settled for a time sufficient for me to complete my secondary education in Goulburn, the inland city where Elisabeth now lives. Goulburn is another setting for her book, so even before I read it I had some connections with it.

Those who come after is a well crafted novel. The central character Juliana Stollburg is descended from the Dutch aristocracy of Middelburg, the chief city of Walcheren in Zeeland. She came to Australia as a child with her parents. Her father, a member of the Dutch resistance during World war II, runs a Dutch trading company, but, like many men who survived that conflict, he has problems. He drinks too much and eventually dies of a heart attack leaving an independent Juliana to fend fer herself and her mother. The mother is highly strung and never at home in Australia. Adolescent Juliana has to take care of her. She finds some help from Philly, the young psychiatric registrar who lives a few doors away. She has a close relationship with him, though well aware he is gay.

When Juliana finishes school, though she’s won two university places, she sits a public service exam and finds herself working for some clandestine part of the army. Her boss is the ultra-masculine Brigadier Michael Munro, who takes a shine for Philly. Their relationship must, of course, be hidden from all eyes except Juliana’s. The relationship is a torment for Philly, who wants to settle down with a good man, but years for Michael. Philly eventually kills himself. Juliana crashes a car and as a result her mother dies. Michael is shot in Vietnam; Juliana kills him with her father’s gun.

Later, much later, now married to Oscar, Juliana discovers her husband is having an affair with Frederick Munro, Michael’s younger brother. All these events fold in on her, but she stands steadfast. To the end she remains a stubborn Dutch aristocrat.

Told like this, the story seems trite, and I did find the gay connections at times a little far-fetched. But Juliana reacts to her husband’s faithlessness not with anger but with resignation. Her character grows with each misfortune. Stoic, certainly, but very much Dutch as well, and ultimately very Australian.

Holdsworth tells a rich, rewarding story. If only this were true of more debut novels.

Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:12:00 +0000

I'll be at the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival on 9 and 10 April, 2011. I'm chairing a session relating to professional writing. My book will be avail;able from Dymocks Coffs Harbour, the official bookseller for the Festival.

Shaun Tan

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 03:44:00 +0000

Congratulations to Shaun Tan for his Academy Award for the animated version of The Lost Thing. What a wonderful endorsement not only of Shaun but of the quality of book illustration in Australia. And Shaun came across as his own endearing humble self in all the media coverage I have seen of the Oscars.

Using G.M. Glaskin's works in teaching creative writing.

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 02:54:00 +0000

My refereed paper on using G.M. Glaskin's works in teaching creative writing has been published in the Proceedings of the 10th Conference of the Australian Association of Writing Programs. Gerry Glaskin was a remarkable Australian writer, more read outside Australia than in. His output was significant, but these days largely forgotten. Writing students, though, would learn much in studying his works. 'The eaves of night', a so-called novella from 1975, shows an almost post-modern approach to story-telling. These days we'd probably term it creative non-fiction.

e-books and the Australian Publishing industry

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:21:00 +0000

My views on this matter, and they are already out of date, were published in the prestigious Meanjin journal in 2010. Meanjin republished the article on the Meanland website, here.

Letter to my children

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:56:00 +0000

My work "Letter to my children" has just been published in the online Polari Journal. I hope that readers may find it of some interest. It is what I would call creative non-fiction, but there may be other names for it.

Into the streets -- remembrance of times past

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 22:47:00 +0000

There are some strange memories evoked in the online exhibition related to the Into the Streets conference. There is a reprint of an article I wrote about the 1974 march for gay rights. The photo accompanying it is someone I don't recognise easily these days, but it's me all righty. In the photos in this web page, I am in the second picture scrolling down. I am the one holding the motor cycle helmet. My then partner is the long-haired, leather jacket wearing chappie to my right. Funny, I don't remember this event at all, despite my vivid account of it at the time. I guess 36 years will do that to you.

Tusk -- a story

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:47:00 +0000

M/C Journal has just published my work Tusk. Pigs and tusks have fascinated me for a long time.

Out of the closets ... into the streets

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 01:47:00 +0000

I'll be presenting a paper to the 10^th Australian Homosexual Histories Conference Into the Streets at the University of Technology, Sydney, 24-25 September 2010. This conference celebrates the 40th anniversary of the lesbian and gay movement in Australia.
I'll be giving a personal account of those 40 years, talking about my own experiences and what it has meant to be out of the closet for close to 40 years.
Details of the conference can be found through clicking on the title to this entry.

Wingers Landfall by Stuart Lauder

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:14:00 +0000

I came across a reference to this book in a paper by Garry Wotherspoon.
I sought out a copy and read it in full. Winger's Landfall (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1962) concerns Harry Shears, a winger (steward) on a liner, the Cyclamen, plying between Sydney and Tilbury docks in the United Kingdom.
Harry has been out in Australia for quite a few months. He takes up the position as winger after he knocks out the incumbent in a night attack. Harry is not necessarily a nice person.
The book recounts life below decks in a very lively fashion. The Merchant Navy, it seems, had its fair share of queens and queers among the crew. There are all types detailed here -- Diamond Lil, the queen of the tub; Rita, a drunk queer; sixteen-year-old flirt Marilyn (a boy); and old, fat queen Patience Strong. Harry is a butch type, but he's still attracted to the young bellboy, Prince, with whom he begins a liaison.
But Harry is searching for clues as to what happened to his half-brother, Danny, who went overboard from the Cyclamen just a day out from Tilbury.
He discovers Danny was part of a semi-religious group organised by Bernard, a wine waiter whom Harry suspects is using the group for his own sexual satisfaction. Bernard is in fact genuinely interested in the moral welfare of his charges, but Harry can't accept that anyone would be driven by noble motives.
Harry himself was in love with Danny, though he never acted on it. It turns out Danny was epileptic and threw himself off the boat in a fit.
The book descends into farce in its final pages, partly because it was forced to have a tragic ending. Written at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, books about such characters were required to have tragic endings if they were to be be published at all.
Harry tries to meet up with Prince, but as Harry had knocked out and possibly killed Bernard, Prince sends the police in his place. They arrive and Harry has a fit and collapses and that's it.
Up until then, the book was a surprisingly good read, full of observations about life on board a liner as well as in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle, where the liner stops on its voyage, as well as Colombo. The scenes of shipboard meals, cleaning the ship and details of the peak (the crew's cabin) are enlightening.
The book is very candid about the relationshiop between Prince and Harry, with no comment or judgment about the disparity between their ages. Prince seems quite comfortable with the relationship, but Harry is secretive and tortured about his desires.
The book is well out of print, but an interesting example of early homosexual narrative -- with the obligatory tragic ending.

Copyright: A very basic outline

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy Fisher) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:44:00 +0000

As a basis for creative income, a professional author licenses or sells part or all of the property right generally known as copyright. In reality, copyright is actually a bundle of rights, any of which may be licensed or sold. The word licence is used to cover the rights that may be granted, for example, the right to publish an author’s work as a book, or the right to first publish an article in a magazine.

Because it is a property right, copyright can be bequeathed and inherited as well. However, copyright differs from rights covering tangible property such as real estate or possessions in that the works it covers can be copied or otherwise used easily without the knowledge of the owner.

In English Common Law, which forms the basis for the Australian legal system, copyright developed as a means by which a copyright owner retained some control over use of their work. Before the advent of the printing press, books were created by hand, a labour intensive process that limited both the number of books and the ability of authors to obtain any economic return from their creation. Authors either had to have a patron or be in a religious order. There was no income from authorship per se. Mass production of books by a printing press, however, offered authors the opportunity for a payment for each copy sold.

However, where there is commerce, there is also theft. Piracy evolved along with the technological innovation of the printing press. Unscrupulous printers could quickly produce unauthorised copies that offered no payment to the author or, and more importantly in political terms, the original publisher.

To counter such piracy the Crown was urged by to regulate the book trade, especially as the number of printers in the United Kingdom increased with the uptake of the new technology. In 1556, Catholic Queen Mary Tudor granted a charter to the Stationers' Company, a London guild of printers, bookbinders, and booksellers, which gave the Company exclusive powers. As always, there were mixed motives for the Crown’s action. Mary’s aim probably was to prevent the spread of the Protestant Reformation. Therefore, in return for preventing the publication of books deemed heretical or seditious the guild's members received a monopoly over the printing industry as only Stationers’ Company members could print books. To reinforce their monopoly the guild was also granted the power to search, seize, and burn all prohibited books and to imprison anyone printing without a licence. Using the Star Chamber, the Crown continued to exercise authority over the Stationers' Company and printing until the Chamber was abolished in 1641, when the English Parliament began to take issue with the power of the Crown and civil war broke out, leading to the execution of King Charles I in January 1649 and the abolition of the House of Lords.

These political changes had little effect on the monopoly of the Stationer’s Company (the guild). The way the system worked was that Company members bought perpetual monopoly rights in an author’s work. While guild members could purchase a manuscript from an author, authors could not become members of the guild and were not entitled to any royalties or additional payments after purchase. Additionally, guild members were allowed to buy and sell rights over authors’ works to each other. The Stationers' Company developed a system to keep track of which members claimed rights in what works and for handling disputes between members by recording transactions in a registration book at the Guilds' Hall.

Despite the major changes in power in the period, Parliament continued to extend the Stationers' Company's censorship/monopoly arrangement through a series of ordinances and Licensing Acts between 1643 and 1692 (the monarchy in the person of Charles II had been restored in May 1660). The Licensing Act of 1662 also required printers to deposit a copy of each work with the guild to prevent changes to the work after it had been reviewed by censors.

The Stationers’ Company’s monopoly was threatened when the last Licensing Act expired in 1694. From that point English booksellers faced an unregulated influx of cheap books printed outside Britain. After years of lobbying Parliament by authors and members of the Company, the Statute of Anne (named after the Queen who came to power in 1702) was passed into law on 10 April 1710. It was the first copyright act in the world. Its promulgation was justified as a matter of responding to piracy (the unauthorised copying of works) as much as anything else, but there were other forces at work. While it was argued that the passage of the Statute of Anne was a major victory for authors’ rights (as indeed it was), for those in power, the open dissemination of unfettered information was most likely seen as a much greater problem. As with Mary’s monopoly, the new act continued to regulate what was published.

Nevertheless, the Statute of Anne, “An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors and Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned” to give it its full title, gave authors some rights in their works while continuing control over publication. Fundamentally for authors, the act introduced two new concepts. An author was recognised as the owner of copyright, and the Statute created a 21-year term of copyright for all works already in print at the time of its enactment and a 14-year term for all works published after. The concept of legal deposit was also enshrined in the Statute in that printers were also required to provide nine copies to the Stationers’ Company for distribution to the Royal Library, the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge universities, the libraries of the universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and Sion College and the Faculty of Advocates library in Edinburgh. When Ireland became a part of Great Britain in 1801 Trinity College and King's Inns libraries in Dublin were added as further depositories. In Australia, the legacy of this legal deposit provision lives on with publishers in New South Wales, for example, required to send a copy to the State Library of New South Wales, Fisher Library at the University of Sydney, the NSW Parliamentary Library and the National Library of Australia. Other states have different legal deposit requirements.

Subsequent legislation introduced copyright protection for other works and also extended the term of protection. Australian copyright law currently is governed by the Copyright Act 1968 (as amended), which is very firmly wedded to the principles and legislative precedents developed in the UK from the Statute of Anne onwards.

Copyright law in the US particularly has continued to follow the course of reacting to commercial imperatives and hence has not always looked to protect the rights of creators. Copyright legislation was first enacted in the US to protect the American publishers who had pirated the works of British writers such as Charles Dickens. The Copyright Extension Act promoted by the pop-singer and Californian Congressman Sonny Bono on behalf of the American music and motion picture industries, passed by both houses of the US legislature on 7 October 1998 and signed into being by President Bill Clinton on 27 October 1998, extended the term of copyright for 70 years after the death of the author and for 95 years if the work was the product of a corporate author (the Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse was a major beneficiary of this change). Bono himself had died on 5 January 1998 as a result of injuries received in a skiing accident and his wife Mary, elected as his congressional replacement, oversaw the passage of the bill.

As a result of Australia signing the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement (USAFTA), the Australian Copyright Act 1968 was amended from the beginning of 2005 to bring the term of copyright into line with US law. Currently in Australia copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the author (although it is only 50 years for works where the author died before 1 January 2005). The countries that are members of the European Union extended the term of copyright to 70 years from 1993.