The immediate impetus for the hasty tabling of an amendment to the Copyright Act 2000 in the Dáil and Seanad in the last two days is the upcoming James Joyce exhibition at the National Library of Ireland, where it is planned to display some of the Joyce manuscripts that the Library acquired in 2002.
It has emerged that the Act does not specifically protect the public display of such materials by their owners, so that in theory a copyright-holder could claim infringement of copyright.
This is the immediate impetus; but the flaw in the Act meant that any exhibition of materials - of any kind - that were covered by copyright law might be open to challenge. Various cultural institutions had been aware of this risk for some time. As a result the amendment is necessary to cover a broad range of activities, not just the exhibition that is currently in prospect.
Nevertheless, the urgency of the measures now taken is due to the particular possibility that the library's exhibition - a meticulously planned and very exciting project, covering much more than just the manuscripts themselves - would be the subject of challenge by the James Joyce estate, which now consists of the writer's grandson, Stephen, and his wife, Solange. The prospect of such a challenge is unfortunately real.
Given this situation, it is not surprising that it was felt necessary to amend the legislation; but that things should have come to this pass is very unfortunate. The National Library is a major national cultural institution; the Joyce exhibition on which so much energy and effort have been expended is clearly planned entirely to honour Joyce and his work, as are other Bloomsday Centenary projects in which the library is involved. It should be unnecessary to say this; it is self-evident.
That it does need to be said is testimony to the paranoia that the Joyce estate's attitude has engendered: the sense that any project, especially any Irish project, is liable to be injuncted or banned if there is the remotest chance of doing so, irrespective of the merits of the project itself. And for this sense the Joyce estate is responsible. To put it at its mildest, there is a lack of confidence that a project will be considered on its merits, and that where copyright is involved (by no means always), the response will be proportionate, both in financial terms and in other respects.
True respect for the heritage of James Joyce is manifested not in demeaning squabbles, or in rushing to court at every possible opportunity, but in the kind of painstaking tribute and devotion that the National Library project so clearly displays.