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Read the text and answer the multiple-choice question by selecting the correct response. Only one response is correct.
Parliament
No one in Parliament would know better than Peter Garrett what largesse copyright can confer so it may seem right that he should announce a royalty for artists, amounting to 5 per cent of all sales after the original one, which can go on giving to their families for as much as 150 years. But that ignores the truth that copyright law is a scandal, recently exacerbated by the Free Trade Agreement with the US which required extension of copyright to 70 years after death.
In the United States it is 90 years but Disney and the other corporate purchasers of copyright didn't manage to have Australia pushed past Singapore and Europe.
Is it scandalous that really valuable copyrights end up in the ownership of corporations (although Agatha Christie's no-doubt worthy great-grandchildren are still reaping the benefits of West End success for her whodunnits and members of the Garrick Club enjoy the continuing fruits of A.A. Milne's Christopher Robin books)? No. The scandal is that bien pensants politicians have attempted to appear cultured by creating private assets which depend on an act of Parliament for their existence and by giving away much more in value than any public benefit could justify. In doing so they have betrayed our trust.
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