The Nobel Prize Winner, scientist and author Peter C. Doherty, is an esteemed Copyright Agency member whose work has been widely copied and shared and therefore attracted copyright royalties.

An example of the type of work copied includes essays for The Monthly and Meanjin, newspaper articles for The Age and The Australian, academic articles for the Australian Institute of Political Science, and extracts from his books.

Peter says, “The protection of the Australian voice in our stories and in our detailed writing – you might call it academic, but it’s more than that – is absolutely vital. If we lose that Australian perspective, about who we are and what we are, we diminish our national awareness and understanding. Copyright is a very important piece in the publishing ecosystem that ensures that keeps happening.”

“Revenue is an important aspect, especially for emerging authors and the multitude of talented people who now freelance, within academia and beyond, but it is also important that the efforts of the creator are recognised and protected by copyright.”

“Though I’ve focused to date on writing about science and the scientific life for the broader community, I understand the importance of popular fiction and literary fiction to our culture and so it’s incredibly important that everything is done to support those creative works and livelihoods. Our readers, from the youngest child up, need examples from local culture expressed to them – particularly Australia’s natural environment. Kids can become enormously engaged with bugs, beetles and rocks etc, and good books written from a local perspective can help enormously with that.”

Peter says the academic publishers, such as Monash and Melbourne University Publishing, University of Queensland Press, NewSouth Publishing and UWA Publishing play an incredibly important role in keeping the Australian voice alive, “…in everything from science to life.”

“We are in a small market and we are flooded daily with content from so many sources. It would be very easy to lose our voice in that torrent.”