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Day 1: PANZ Conference ‘A clear global picture of the industry – and the opportunities for us now’

By News Archive

SAMSUNG

Platforms, Markets, Readers: Reinventing Publishing Today, PANZ International Conference 2014, brought movers and shakers of the publishing world to address the New Zealand industry earlier this week. On both inspirational and practical levels, Kiwi publishers had the chance to see into the international future of publishing and how they can participate.
 
International Publishers Association president YS Chi (pictured below with CLNZ’s Paula Browning) made his first visit to this country to give the keynote: Does Publishing Matter? The Challenges of the Digital World.

SAMSUNGProbably more used to audiences in their thousands rather than New Zealand’s hundred plus, YS immediately told his audience that publishing does matter, that it is alive and thriving, but we are about to see change on a large scale.

“Some of the challenge is digital,” he explained. “The perception is that you just press a button and it all happens. At the same time, digital gives us an unmatched opportunity for creativity – we now have more toys to play with. With the delivery of new systems, media companies must be tech companies too. There is an image that we are dinosaurs, but people are ignorant of the value publishers bring to the process of getting material in print or on-line. They think that the saving on print costs must be major, but in fact print is a small part of the costs of book production.” YS says we need to look at new ways to monetarise the content of books. As Chair of Reed Elsevier, as well as his IPA role, he is still a hands-on publisher.

He also believes that “Innovation moves faster than adoption. People ask how many still read on paper, but in fact hardback and paperback sales are relatively stable over the last two or three years.”

Copyright is a big issue in YS’ IPA presidency. The copy left lobby – ‘copy wrong’ he calls it – means publishing needs to engage with governments on digital and copyright policy.
YS quoted Winston Churchill for his final words: “This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.” 

Sam Elworthy Auckland University Press and PANZ President:
Presidential and personal comments in one: I walked away from the Mercure on Tuesday night revved up – by the enthusiasm and expertise of our local publishers, the vision and engagement of our great guests from across the seas, and the collegiality with which a whole lot of big ideas were being shared. We had education publishers and trade publishers, huge multinationals and one-person operations, designers and finance people all sitting in the same room and wrestling with the same problems and opportunities.

Developing and Selling New Digital Products

murray_thomThe Great New Zealand Songbook’s Murray Thom (right) opened the throttle and let roar a presentation on that project (and the subsequent Great

 Australian Songbook – an account of persistent banging on doors and having the right ones eventually open.

Paul Cameron, Booktrack founder, described how far the music and sound effects accompanying an audio book have developed, and of the major international interest and possible involvements for the company including working with educators using Booktrack as an aid to learning. He also demonstrated the new Booktrack app that accesses 20,000 copyright free tracks and effects for those who want to create their own!

 

Whither the American Publishing Industry?

dan catonEducation authority and publisher Dan Caton quickly assured the audience that the current situation for publishers was “Not as bad as feared – but not as good as we’d like!” He then outlined the current barriers faced by other countries in selling in the US market. His insider’s view of the hiccups in imposing a ‘common core’ educational curriculum there revealed an ever more fragmented system and little likelihood of seeing this evolve.

 For publishers, Dan sees a future of slimmer margins, a decline in author advances and Amazon ‘calling the tune’, plus television and movies integrated into social studies curricula.

His recommendations for publishers hoping to break into the market: decide who you are and publish to it; target markets; be best in class in technology, product, systems marketing and data mining. “Educational publishers going forward will be efficient, nimble and slim,” Caton advises.
 
Melanie Laville-Moore, Allen & Unwin: A terrific couple of days, made all the more so by seeing the PANZ membership clearly engaged with, and enjoying the discussions around the big issues and challenges of the day. Local voices joined with stand-out international speakers – once again showing the many synergies and understanding that NZ publishers share of the wider global industry.

Digital distribution and related sales and marketing practice

victoria nash biography photoVictoria Nash emphasised that all of the publishing steps that applied to conventional publishing apply to digital, however it takes much more time to set up and much more administration she warned. 

A key graphic showing the amount of information needed for e-book discoverability versus traditional publishing was an eye opener: 250 fields of data for each e-book title.

Print books undergo about three changes of price in their life span, but e-books have minimum 10 changes and as prices fluctuate often “Reconciliation of sales is very important,” Victoria advises. But over many currencies and exchange rates, this too is complex!

Marthie Markstein, Random House: 
Publishing is being reinvented daily, and the new world can at times feel confusing. I loved the way the speakers managed to encapsulate the current state of publishing so clearly, while giving us great hope for the future. YS Chi was inspirational: Who would not believe that we actually have a healthy future for the world of books after listening to him? Special thanks to Victoria Nash who managed to make the digital process interesting. So many good speakers, such a great insight into the world of books – thanks to all! 

 

Selling and delivering more to schools

neale pitches portraitNeale Pitches (right) outlined the growth of South Pacific Press and Lift Education and shared the difficulties of establishing partnerships in the US market especially during the Global Financial Crisis. SPP provides content in Adobe, for ipads, e-books, Google slides, HTML 5 … and book books.

Biozone International is a specialist Biology publisher. Logistics and Website Co-ordinator, Tim Lind, showed how a one topic publishing company can still have a big reach. The company actually maintains a UK sales office for its e-books, presentation media, course notes and student review material, and has good sales of foreign rights for their publications.

Tim would like to see educators agree on a common platform for e-learning.
 
Mark Sayes, ESA Publications:
marvellous range of well received presenters all with a great variety of experiences, observations and thought provoking comments.

How to compete with FREE

CLNZ’s Paula Browning asked publishers: Will your content get shared before you can sell it? “It is an inefficient process – it can cost more than it is worth to get something protected after it is out of the bag, and to sue companies or individuals who breach copyright is long and expensive.”
 
Chris Hocquard, media and entertainment lawyer talked about “free” as a valid marketing tool, much used by the music industry. “Early adopters of new trends won’t pay – to get to the market you have to give stuff away,” – as Lorde did, he explains – “Unless you are Beyoncé!”

Kirsty Melville, Book Division President at Andrews McMeel, (right) talked about the power of content and that consumers want to access product on many different levels, from a coffee table book to an on-line excerpt from the same book.
 
Also on the panel was YS Chi: “I’m a real believer that there is no such thing as a free lunch,” he said, noting that on many channels of discovery such as Google, the person putting up the content doesn’t pay… but the advertiser does.
 
At Elsevier, YS says, they break e-content in pieces; to the extent you can rent a scientific article, available for 24 hours for 99 cents. In e-education there’s a need to teach that piracy is stealing; with e-enforcement YS believes you need to pick your fights and prosecute egregious violators – “even if it costs $60,000.”
 
His thoughts: “You need to adapt, add value, and explore new business models,” and his apt summary “The more on-line content is available, the less people want to pay for it.”
 
Neale Pitches, South Pacific Press:
Reflections on the PANZ Conference. Off to a brilliant start with YS Chi. “Publishing is thriving … depending on who you talk to”. That, for me was essential theme of the conference. A few other YS memorables: “uncertainty creates opportunity”, “fail often and fail early”, “protect copyright to protect culture”, and perhaps the one that rang most true to me, “we have an image problem”. From a great start then, it’s hard not to go downhill but Murray Thom was a gem. His upbeat presentation about the need for a big idea and a ton of resilience had me well enthralled. And his catchy phrase, “give that idea a passport”. Hey Murray, The Beach Boys walk into a bar. One says to the other “Round? Round? Get a round? I get a round?” That segues me briefly to the social side of things. It’s hard to beat being crammed into a tiny bar with a decent glass of kiwi wine and an eclectic mix of your fellow publishers.
What is it about small spaces that gets collegiality flowing? For me the conference was a good mix of international, local, tried and tested and new. I was taken with the similarities that trade, children’s and educational publishers face in ‘The 21st Century’. I enjoyed all the speakers but one … if I hear another hackneyed story about how the education system is not yet ‘post-industrial’ I really will go like the Dutch lady with the inflatable shoes – pop my clogs! OK very briefly … I also liked Dan Caton’s market stats (sorry Fergus), Fergus’s Ellie story – “it was exceptional and unexceptional” – talk to Fergus for the full story.  Victoria’s metadata, Claire’s tweets, and Brett’s incredibly open, clear and detailed exposition on digital marketing. Paul Cameron’s user-driven growth, the chance to catch up with Paula Browning on matters vital to educational publishing and finally the chance to hear Prof Stuart McNaughton, an old friend with some new ideas … thanks to Melanie, Anne and the crew who put it all together and finally, Hot Topics: Metadata; Dashboards; Deep diving; Planning; Digital with everything; Telling our stories.

 

A Trans-Tasman Battle. Statutory vs Voluntary Licensing – Who Benefits?

By News Archive

Paula Browning writes: As New Zealanders, we’re quite used to the rest of the world thinking that we’re a southern territory of Australia. While there are plenty similarities there are also a lot of areas in which we are very different – from the 2013 performances of our respective national rugby teams to the way content is licensed in our education sectors. We know that in rugby terms New Zealand comes out on top, but which licensing system works better and who benefits the most from each?

A quick description of the two licensing schemes:

Voluntary licensing – a collective management organisation (e.g. CLNZ) sells licences for the copying of copyright materials on behalf of rightsholders (either via a direct mandate from the rightsholders or via reciprocal agreements with collective management organisations representing rightsholders in other territories.)

Statutory licensing – a remunerated exception in the relevant copyright laws, for defined classes of users, and under which a collective management organisation (e.g. Copyright Agency for the Australian statutory schemes for education and government users) is the named collecting society and operates in accordance with that legislation

The following table shows the main operational differences between the two schemes:

  Statutory Licence – Australia Voluntary Licence – NZ
Content that can be copied All text and images:

  •          From any source
  •          Print or digital
  •          Local or foreign
As specifically authorised:

  •          By mandate
  •          By foreign affiliates
How content can be used All forms of reproduction and communication for educational purposes As specifically authorised:

  •          By mandate
  •          By foreign affiliates
Content excluded from use None
  •          Standalone artworks
  •          Digital-born content
  •          Maps, charts and plans
  •          Any content not authorised by rightsholder
Decision to take up licence For education, formal notice of intent to rely on statutory scheme.
For government, no notice required.
Individual school
Negotiation and payment of licence fees Negotiated and paid by relevant peak body. Individual school
Risk management for infringement Not applicable – statutory exception Borne by individual school and, potentially, individual teachers

 

Both systems rely on surveys of copying in schools in order to establish what is being copied and which rightsholders need to be paid. As can be seen from the table above, the material for which payment for copying will be made in Australia is much more comprehensive than in New Zealand. For example, if you blog and the content of your blog is used in Australian schools and captured in a survey, you will receive a payment. In New Zealand, no payment would be made and it is up to individual teachers to decide if the material they wish to use in their teaching is legally available to them either via the Section 44 education exception in the Copyright Act or under licence, if their school has one. A Statutory Licence scheme relieves the teacher of having to make this decision.

In 2012/2013 the Australian system generated revenue from schools for rightsholders of $A59.8m ($NZ64.6m). In New Zealand, schools income for 2013 was just under $1m. The current agreed flat rate for each school student in Australia is $A16.93. Primary schools in New Zealand that take out a CLNZ licence pay $1.50 per student; secondary schools pay $3.00 per student.

It’s fairly easy to deduce from the figures above, that if you’re a publisher of education content that is being copied in schools in both countries, your return is likely to be much better under the Australian Statutory Licence scheme.

In addition, the Statutory Licence seems to benefit both educators and publishers. For educators, the resources they need for teaching are comprehensively covered by the Statutory Licence and there is no need for complex decisions on what and how materials can be used.  At the same time, the creators of the materials being used are fairly compensated for the use of their material, generating a revenue stream that allows them to invest in more content.[i]

Paula Browning, Chief Executive Copyright Licenising NZ

Disclaimer: This is a simplified summary intended to provide high-level comparisons between the two systems. It is not intended to be a definitive legal analysis.



[i]
 In 2013, the Australian Law Review Commission (ALRC) commenced an inquiry into Copyright and the Digital Economy in Australia. One of the areas of review is the Statutory Licence Scheme. CLNZ has made a submission to the ALRC on behalf of publishers to argue for the retention of the scheme given the effectiveness of its operation that enables investment in future content creation that benefits the next generation of school students.

 

Kevin Chapman receives New Year Honour

By Media Releases, News Archive

Publishers Association of New Zealand immediate past president, Kevin Chapman, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours announced today. Kevin led the efforts of PANZ and others in the book industry here to secure New Zealand’s Guest of Honour year at world-leading Frankfurt Book Fair in 2012.

“Through his South Island charm and pure force of nature, Kevin Chapman managed to get New Zealand writers on the world stage at Frankfurt 2012. It was an enormous achievement to bring together New Zealand publishers and authors, government agencies and embassies, German publishers and festivals and much more to make a huge event happen,” PANZ president Sam Elworthy said. “We’re a more international industry than ever now and we have Kevin Chapman to thank for that.
 
“It’s great to see him recognised for those achievements and for his long service to the wider book industry.”

Other Honours for Literature

Carruthers made a Companion

Alastair Carruthers, who has had twelve years of involvement with the Arts Council and recently retired after six years as their Chair, became a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours. During his time at the Arts Council, Alastair saw returns from increased public investment in the arts being enjoyed by a greater number of New Zealanders. He was also heavily involved in our GoH year in Frankfurt. 

Writers Awarded

Three writers, Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton, noted poet Jenny Bornholdt and writer and art critic Greg O’Brien are also named in the Honour List as Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

We congratulate you all.

Paula Browning Speech at Educational Publishing Awards

By News Archive

A lot has happened in the publishing sector in the past 12 months, and a lot has happened in the education sector too, so if you’re an education publisher who’s working in both sectors you probably feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz being tossed around in a cyclone. We can only hope that 2014 will bring a degree of certainty into education and into publishing.

My hopes for the future of New Zealand’s education system were raised in July this year at the annual Nethui. Nethui – for those of you not familiar with it, is a three day conference that brings together organisations and individuals involved in Internet issues in New Zealand. The speech that shone out from all of the sessions I attended was given by a school principal. Not just any school principal, but Russell Burt – principal of Point England Primary in east Auckland and Convenor of the Manaiakalani School cluster. This cluster of schools is committed to growing digital citizenship for children in the Tamaki Community. Russell has been an educator for over 30 years and at Nethui spoke vehemently and passionately about “re-tooling schools”

By re-tooling he was referring to how schools can be re-engineered with Internet-based technologies to make learning more engaging and empowering. It is a challenging time for New Zealand schools to be attempting to embrace the adoption of digital everything. Education is a sector that is comfortable being analogue and is literally built – by which I mean the bricks and mortar – to deliver the outcomes it is mandated to achieve within four square walls that are focussed on display space for paper. Succeeding to bring about this degree of change in any sector requires leaders, champions, funding and determination. Succeeding to change the education sector requires all of this in bucket loads.

And where do publishers fit in to this evolving environment? How do you continue to compete in a world where content consumers think that Google can answer everything and that professionally produced material should be priced at close to zero? You can do that by being closer than ever to your customers and by constantly reviewing who your customers actually are. Are they individual teachers or Team Leaders or the librarian or the Head of Department or the curriculum lead in a cluster? Will the implementation of the Network for Learning (I’m assuming you all know what the N4L is?) change who you need to target? Do you need to change HOW you approach your customers? Maybe your social media presence needs to be stronger and the feedback you get from social media used for both further marketing and product development?

These challenges are not unique to publishing. They’re symptomatic of a world in which we now look online for everything and the very same world in which copyright is regularly a dirty word.

That leads me into an update on a particular matter that has been consuming most of my time and a lot of CLNZ’s resources in 2013 – our case against Universities New Zealand at the Copyright Tribunal. This time last year we were still optimistic that our months of meetings with the negotiating team from the universities would finally bear fruit and we would have a new license in place for the 2013 academic year and beyond. Our optimism was misplaced and the entrenched position of the universities left us with no option but to take the matter to the Tribunal. While the case proceeds, the universities continue to access your content at the old licence rate and this will now also carry over into 2014. There are some lessons to learn from our experience as we proceed with this case. Copyright is like the third cousin twice removed in the family that is Intellectual Property. If you want to be paid for and enforce your rights in a registered patent – you’ll find very little argument from the general consumer and a court system that will help you. If you’re the owner of a registered Trademark and your rights have been breached – same answer. But if you’re a copyright owner of creative content like books, movies and music – people who want to use your product are more often than not reluctant to pay for it at a price that’s fair and if you want to try to enforce your rights, it’s a long hard road through the so-called justice system. How do we try to overcome this negativity and reluctance? Well we’re starting at the top with the government and key members of the other political parties. In conjunction with PANZ, CLNZ is having a comprehensive report prepared on the economic value of the book sector in New Zealand. The stats from this report will be combined with those from the music, film & TV and games sectors to draw a picture of the New Zealand creative industries that will demonstrate the importance of creativity to the New Zealand economy. This is one way to help the whole sector to secure investment and a legislative framework that supports future growth from our creative industries.

I’d like to end with a short quote from Point England Principal, Russell Burt:

 “When essential aspects of learning are amalgamated and new media are used for the reception and delivery modes, the learner experience is completely different. It is more than possible to develop new learner agency, efficacy and leadership in learning. This journey to genuine citizenship will have three major hallmarks:

  • ubiquity – anywhere, anytime, any pace, any people learning
  • agency – the power to act -informed/empowered/enabled learners
  • connectedness – edgeless education, connected minds”

So that’s what the leader of a cluster of the lowest decile schools in New Zealand is aspiring to – is that what you as publishers of quality New Zealand education content are aspiring to?

New School Journal provider to mentor new Kiwi authors  

By News Archive

Media Release 24 October

Lift Education (Lift), a division of South Pacific Press Limited, has been named as the new provider of publishing services for the Ministry of Education’s instructional series, which includes the School JournalReady to Read and Connected.

Neale Pitches, CEO of South Pacific Press (and former CEO of Learning Media) is excited about working on this series with the Ministry, who will be the publisher. “We will continue to support the Ministry to tell New Zealand stories and to build the School Journal community of excited readers and Kiwi talent,” said Pitches.

“We have a quality team of educators and publishers who push the boundaries,” Pitches said. “We also hold what might be described as an ‘abundance model’ of teaching and learning, preferring to focus on what students bring to the classroom rather than what they don’t know. This has led us to take an interest in research that questions so-called ability grouping of students and to develop new models of teaching and learning in the middle years that offer all students in diverse classrooms the chance to learn and think at higher levels than may have previously been encouraged. The role of vibrant, engaging, and professionally-developed learning materials across media platforms is often underestimated in our quest to improve student achievement.”

“The new arrangement is best described as a ‘collaboration’, with the Ministry as publisher,” Pitches said. “We offer the people, expertise, skills and passion that the Ministry needs to meet its goal of lifting student achievement, especially for priority learners, and to continue the unique New-Zealand tradition of supporting students and teachers with government-sponsored learning materials of the highest quality.”

A feature of this contract is a commitment to nurturing aspiring New Zealand writers and illustrators. “We are fortunate that New Zealand’s best, including Joy Cowley, Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace, Gus Sinaumea Hunter and Gavin Bishop have agreed to mentor new authors and illustrators,” said Pitches.

Pitches and fellow director Meryl-Lynn Pluck (publisher of Rainbow Reading) have spent nine years developing South Pacific Press Ltd. They bought Lift from founder Dr Sue Watson in 2007. The Wellington-based company now has two imprints, Lift and CSI Literacy.

Both imprints featured in the 2012 CLNZ Educational Publishing Awards. Lift was shortlisted for its work with the New Zealand Fire Service and CSI Literacy Kit 3 was awarded ‘Best Programme or Resource for Export’. Another CSI resource, CSI Chapters, is a finalist in the export category in this year’s awards, which will be announced on 14 November.

“We are extremely proud to be shortlisted again. When developing CSI Literacy learning materials for New Zealand and overseas classrooms, we ask schools to submit evaluation data so we can see if we’re on the right track. Dr Sarah Powell has analysed this case-study data to quantify student achievement and we are very pleased with the achievement data, especially for Māori, Pasifika and struggling readers,” said Pitches.

Pitches emphasises Lift’s strong track record as instructional designers. In recent years, Lift has developed literacy and curriculum resources for the government, and corporate and non-corporate organisations, including the Ministry of Education, New Zealand Blood Service, Electoral Commission, New Zealand Olympic Committee, New Zealand Fire Service, New Zealand Transport Agency, and many more.

“We always commission local content where possible, when developing resources for our clients and for export. New Zealand has a talented pool of educators, authors, illustrators, photographers, designers and technologists, who are fantastic at bringing New Zealand content to life for New Zealand and international learners. We will continue to draw from this pool for the instructional series, as we have done forConnected 2013 which is entirely written, illustrated, designed, edited and overseen by New Zealanders,” said Pitches.

Media release from Lift Education, a division of South Pacific Press Limited. Please find attached a profile of Neale Pitches and more information about Lift Education.

Contact

For all enquiries:

Neale Pitches

CEO

027 445 4431

Neale@southpacificpress.com

Please note: Neale Pitches is in the USA until 4 November. He is available by email.

For high-res images:

Jenna Tinkle

jenna@lifteducation.com

Jenna Tinkle
Sales and Marketing Coordinator

Lift Education, a division of South Pacific Press
Level 2, Mountain Safety House
19 Tory Street, Wellington 6011, New Zealand
PO Box 19088, Wellington 6149, New Zealand
Ph +64 4 381 2247, Fax +64 4 381 2243
www.csi-literacy.com

Kiwi authors’ income hurt by illegal file sharing

By News, News Archive

Discovery of an educational text co-authored by a New Zealander and made available for download on Kim Dotcom’s file-sharing site Mega is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ according to Publishers Association of New Zealand president Sam Elworthy.

The text, Using MIS (Management Information Systems) (NZ) by David M. Kroenke and Tony Hooper – a lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington, was shared via a link posted on the Facebook page of a tertiary institutions’ study group.
PANZ has issued a ‘take down’ notice to Mega to remove the files from its site and contacted Facebook to have the post removed.
“Educational texts are being illegally shared at an alarming rate and it’s hurting New Zealand authors, publishers and distributors to the point where earning a viable living is becoming increasingly threatened,” Elworthy says.
“Technology makes sharing files very easy but it’s the people who put in the hard work to make and
supply the texts in the first place who miss out.”
The text is published by educational publisher Pearson and distributed in New Zealand by start-up business Edify. Pearson quit the New Zealand market in August this year after claiming its local business model was no longer sustainable.
“There are very few publishers now investing in publishing for the New Zealand tertiary market due to its small size. However it’s hugely important that the New Zealand context is provided to support New Zealand students in their learning of a topic,” says Edify’s Adrian Keane.
“To see an author and publisher who were prepared to make this investment in publishing for the New Zealand environment treated in this way is infuriating. It will only serve as a disincentive to any other author or publisher when they see the negative impact that illegal downloading has on income.
“This particular text was even available as an eText so it’s not like it was hard to access in a digital format.
“Where we have a text that’s prescribed for a course we used to be able to rely on 80% of the students buying the book. Now that figure is more like 50% which puts the viability of publishing these books under threat. It’s safe to say that illegal sharing is really hurting both our business and the incomes of New Zealand authors who spend months creating the works,” Keane says.
Elworthy says the link posted on the student Facebook page went straight to the files on Mega meaning anyone could download it.
Kim Dotcom is fighting extradition to the United States on copyright and racketeering charges over the operation of his previous file locker site Megaupload.

Kiwi Publishers in Taiwan – TIBE 2014

By News Archive


 

This was Julia Marshall’s fourth time at the Taipei International Book Exhibition. The Gecko Press publisher had been wondering if it was worthwhile attending as she has over the past years appointed agents for the areas involved. “But I saw a great change… I knew who I was meeting and why I was meeting them, and involved Gecko’s agents too. And I had really good books to sell.

“I discovered it really is important for people buying books and buying rights to see the publisher. An Australian agent told me that publishers always do a much better job of presenting the book.

“That can be a two way street; as I am presenting, I’m learning a lot too… like why some blurbs work and others are less successful. I can go back to the office and say ‘this write up was great’ or ‘this one we need to rethink’. You learn a lot about how a book is going to work.

“I had wondered if a week away was an inefficient use of my time, but I came back reassured it was a week well spent.  TIBE is not as appointment bound as Bologna where everything must be arranged before the Fair starts, at Taiwan I get to see other publisher displays.”

Peter Dowling of Oratia Media made his first visit to TIBE this year. He appreciated the size of the fair, and having good qualities of time and access to build relationships with Taiwanese and other publishers. “Through New Zealand representatives up there we also had opportunities to meet really hard hitters in local publishing. The hosting was excellent.

“We had some local right interests, mainly around our children’s and indigenous titles. I’d like to turn that into dollars!” Peter is weighing up his options for next year and says the Guest of Honour involvement would definitely be a plus in 2015.

Publisher David Ling sold two titles to a Taiwan company last year, and was there for the launch of the translated titles, Voices of Gallipoli by Maurice Shadbolt and In Flanders Fields by Monty Ingram at TIBE. David gave an address about the effects of World War 1 on New Zealand at the launch. He is particularly impressed by the quality and presentation of the translated books.

David says the upcoming GoH year has been significant in gaining attention from publishers there, and he has interest in two of Shadbolt’s other titles. In addition, he expects to make rights sales for the five children’s books he has published since last year and for one backlist title.

AUP’s Sam Elworthy was another Taiwan first-timer, and found it “A very good fair. As it was my first time in Asia, Taiwan was a hospitable starting point, as English is widely spoken and the country is about New Zealand’s size so I got to meet their leading publishers. The five or six majors have exciting lists.” Sam was impressed by their ‘beautiful books’ and the fact that a lot of high-end nonfiction is translated for the Taiwan market. Sam pictured right  the with the publisher Transoxania and the Chinese edition of Robin Hyde’s Dragon Rampant.

“We have good prospects for the translation of a couple of books. Also, Taiwan has expertise in selling rights into mainland China and Korea. It was a cool experience.”

Sam stopped over in Hong Kong on the way back to meet AUP’s printers and establish contacts with the Hong Kong University Press.

“The Wendy Pye Group have successfully sold to Taiwan and China in past years, and being there this year allowed us to renew old friendships,” said Dame Wendy. She joined sales rep Robert Andersen to represent her company at TIBE. “The fair is a leading opportunity to showcase technology like our extensive direct marketing package of print and technology being offered to Asia, in particular the new Sunshine Classic package. Orders which will result from this fair are now under discussion, and a further trip is planned to follow up and finalise deals in late March or April.

“For any publisher wishing to take the Asian market seriously, the Taipei fair should be a regular event on their company calendar. Congratulations also to the team who organised the events and the New Zealand stand.”
 

TIBE 2015 Guest of Honour plans progressed

 

The Taipei International Book Exhibition had a different focus for Kevin Chapman (Project Director GoH TIBE 2015) and Ka Meechan (Project Manager GoH TIBE 2015) – while other New Zealand publishing representatives were on the stand with their titles, they were involved in an intense round of meetings in preparation for our Guest of Honour year.

They met with publishers, fair organisers, cultural organisations, bookstores and other groups to discuss which to partner with and how partnership will work for both parties. “It was invaluable background for deciding what needs to be done, who we can do that with and what aspects we should be concentrating on,” said Kevin (pictured right).

“The next step is tying down the criteria and reporting back to the funding and reference groups with what we have learned. That includes Creative New Zealand, Education New Zealand, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry for Culture and Heritage, as well as writers’ representatives and others.

“We need to identify writers who have books in translation already on the market, and work with publishers about authors whose titles they believe will fit the Taiwan market. Once we’ve been through that process, we aim to have a draft programme schedule in July,” said Kevin.

PANZ International Conference 2014

By News Archive

The PANZ International Conference 2014 will be held at the Mercure Hotel, 8 Customs Street, Auckland on 31st March and 1st April and we are now taking registrations.

To register please download the form provided and email to: admin@publishers.org.nz by the 28th February.

A full programme will be available shortly but we are delighted to confirm the following international presenters:

  • YS Chi, International Publishers Association, President
  • Dan Caton, Wittel/Morris Strategic Consulting, President
  • Brett Osmond, Random House Australia, Marketing and Publicity Director
  • Kirsty Melville, Andrews McMeel Publishing, President
  • Sarah Foster, Walker Books Australia, Publisher and Managing Director

They will be joined by key industry figures from NZ.

Special accommodation rates of $149 room and breakfast incl. GST per night with the Mercure Hotel have been negotiated.  

Click here for the Mercure hotel booking form.  Please note accommodation arrangements are the responsibility of individual delegates.

For further information please contact Conference project Manager Karen McKenzie on conference@publishers.org.nz.

A Trans-Tasman Battle. Statutory vs Voluntary Licensing – Who Benefits?

By News Archive

Paula Browning writes: As New Zealanders, we’re quite used to the rest of the world thinking that we’re a southern territory of Australia. While there are plenty similarities there are also a lot of areas in which we are very different – from the 2013 performances of our respective national rugby teams to the way content is licensed in our education sectors. We know that in rugby terms New Zealand comes out on top, but which licensing system works better and who benefits the most from each?

A quick description of the two licensing schemes:

Voluntary licensing – a collective management organisation (e.g. CLNZ) sells licences for the copying of copyright materials on behalf of rightsholders (either via a direct mandate from the rightsholders or via reciprocal agreements with collective management organisations representing rightsholders in other territories.)

Statutory licensing – a remunerated exception in the relevant copyright laws, for defined classes of users, and under which a collective management organisation (e.g. Copyright Agency for the Australian statutory schemes for education and government users) is the named collecting society and operates in accordance with that legislation

The following table shows the main operational differences between the two schemes:

 

Statutory Licence – Australia

Voluntary Licence – NZ

Content that can be copied

All text and images:

  •          From any source
  •          Print or digital
  •          Local or foreign

As specifically authorised:

  •          By mandate
  •          By foreign affiliates

How content can be used

All forms of reproduction and communication for educational purposes

As specifically authorised:

  •          By mandate
  •          By foreign affiliates

Content excluded from use

None

  •          Standalone artworks
  •          Digital-born content
  •          Maps, charts and plans
  •          Any content not authorised by rightsholder

Decision to take up licence

For education, formal notice of intent to rely on statutory scheme.


For government, no notice required.

Individual school

Negotiation and payment of licence fees

Negotiated and paid by relevant peak body.

Individual school

Risk management for infringement

Not applicable – statutory exception

Borne by individual school and, potentially, individual teachers

 

Both systems rely on surveys of copying in schools in order to establish what is being copied and which rightsholders need to be paid. As can be seen from the table above, the material for which payment for copying will be made in Australia is much more comprehensive than in New Zealand. For example, if you blog and the content of your blog is used in Australian schools and captured in a survey, you will receive a payment. In New Zealand, no payment would be made and it is up to individual teachers to decide if the material they wish to use in their teaching is legally available to them either via the Section 44 education exception in the Copyright Act or under licence, if their school has one. A Statutory Licence scheme relieves the teacher of having to make this decision.

In 2012/2013 the Australian system generated revenue from schools for rightsholders of $A59.8m ($NZ64.6m). In New Zealand, schools income for 2013 was just under $1m. The current agreed flat rate for each school student in Australia is $A16.93. Primary schools in New Zealand that take out a CLNZ licence pay $1.50 per student; secondary schools pay $3.00 per student.

It’s fairly easy to deduce from the figures above, that if you’re a publisher of education content that is being copied in schools in both countries, your return is likely to be much better under the Australian Statutory Licence scheme.

In addition, the Statutory Licence seems to benefit both educators and publishers. For educators, the resources they need for teaching are comprehensively covered by the Statutory Licence and there is no need for complex decisions on what and how materials can be used.  At the same time, the creators of the materials being used are fairly compensated for the use of their material, generating a revenue stream that allows them to invest in more content.[i]

Paula Browning, Chief Executive Copyright Licenising NZ

Disclaimer: This is a simplified summary intended to provide high-level comparisons between the two systems. It is not intended to be a definitive legal analysis.




[i]
In 2013, the Australian Law Review Commission (ALRC) commenced an inquiry into Copyright and the Digital Economy in Australia. One of the areas of review is the Statutory Licence Scheme. CLNZ has made a submission to the ALRC on behalf of publishers to argue for the retention of the scheme given the effectiveness of its operation that enables investment in future content creation that benefits the next generation of school students.

 

Kevin Chapman receives New Year Honour

By News Archive

Publishers Association of New Zealand immediate past president, Kevin Chapman, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours announced today. Kevin led the efforts of PANZ and others in the book industry here to secure New Zealand’s Guest of Honour year at world-leading Frankfurt Book Fair in 2012.

 

“Through his South Island charm and pure force of nature, Kevin Chapman managed to get New Zealand writers on the world stage at Frankfurt 2012. It was an enormous achievement to bring together New Zealand publishers and authors, government agencies and embassies, German publishers and festivals and much more to make a huge event happen,” PANZ president Sam Elworthy said. “We’re a more international industry than ever now and we have Kevin Chapman to thank for that.

 

“It’s great to see him recognised for those achievements and for his long service to the wider book industry.”

 

Other Honours for Literature

 

Carruthers made a Companion

Alastair Carruthers, who has had twelve years of involvement with the Arts Council and recently retired after six years as their Chair, became a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year Honours. During his time at the Arts Council, Alastair saw returns from increased public investment in the arts being enjoyed by a greater number of New Zealanders. He was also heavily involved in our GoH year in Frankfurt. 

 

Writers Awarded

Three writers, Booker prize winner Eleanor Catton, noted poet Jenny Bornholdt and writer and art critic Greg O’Brien are also named in the Honour List as Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit.



We congratulate you all.