Sir, – I find myself in agreement with what Stephen Joyce (April 21st) has to say about the misuse of his grandfather’s works in the Joyce Collections housed in the National Library as happened recently.
It is time that the State gave proper protection to such works and looked hard at Section 34 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 and amended it to protect all documents that are in the ownership or care of the State’s libraries or archives that are made available to scholars for research purposes, to ensure that the self-same scholars cannot claim copyright over any of the original contents or by making copious notes have them republished in America. Mr Joyce made reference to one Joyce scholar, Danis Rose.
Mr Rose, according to his own statement, published on the House of Breathings’ website in America, says he was “asked to inspect . . . and pronounce on the authenticity . . .” of a certain document in the Library’s collection. During the course of this work he made “copious notes” for himself. When he finished the work, Mr Rose published his “copious notes” together with his own annotations in America in six volumes and now claims copyright for 25 years under Irish law over the entire works including the Joyce writing. This is plain wrong.
Mr Rose says that he only wishes to have the 25-year copyright in order to hold it in “trust” for artists, scholars and librarians of the future, which is utter rubbish.
Had he published the six volumes in Ireland, under section 198 of the Act under which he claims his copyright he would have to distribute at least nine sets to the various research libraries attached to the universities for future scholars, artists and librarians to study. If the universities want a copy it’ll cost them €800 plus postage. – Yours,