Tomorrow's World, the Australian Initiative (ISBN 0-646-25211-9 and 0-646-25348-4)

In December 1999, we found out that the Australian Commonwealth Government's export promotion organisation, the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade), had copied and adopted as their own certain material from our book Tomorrow's World, the Australian Initiative and published the material in their Australia Open for Business website at http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au.

At no time did Austrade request or have permission to make use of our material for whatever purpose or reason. Further, by not giving credit to the original author, the publication or its publisher, we believe that Austrade's website misrepresented to the general public and the business community worldwide, and in all likelihood to its Stakeholders that its contents were original.

We immediately informed Austrade and asked them to remove the material, and sought undertakings that they would correct the wrong by informing their Stakeholders by letter and the public by way of a notice on the offending website.

Austrade, sought relief under Section 183(1) of the Australian Copyright Act 1968 which provides that the copyright in a work is not infringed by the Commonwealth or a State if the acts are done for the services of the Commonwealth or State. By doing so, Austrade admitted ibso facto that they were in breach of Section 183(4) of the same Act which requires that the Commonwealth or State shall, as soon as possible, unless it appears that it would be contrary to the public interest to do so, inform the owner of the copyright, of the doing of the act.

Tomorrow's World has been highly acclaimed by many government and business leaders, and we have often been asked and have gladly given our permission for our material to be used by the Australian Government to promote Australia as an innovative nation.

We have a zero tolerance policy towards anyone plagiarising, copying or taking our material without permission, for whatever purpose or reason. We make no exceptions and accept no excuses. As publishers, we believe there is nothing more sacred than our intellectual property. As people, we believe no one should take something that belongs to someone else without asking or paying for it.

Stakeholders in the Australia Open for Business website, as published by Austrade at http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au/about_aob.asp.

• Australian Business
• Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry
• Australian Tourist Commission
• Australian Trade Commission
• Business Council of Australia
• Business Victoria
• Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade
• Department of Industry Science & Resources
• New South Wales Government
• Northern Territory Government
• Queensland State Government
• South Australian Government
• Tasmanian Government
• The Office of Business Development & Tourism (ACT)
• Western Australian Government

The Correspondence

Transcript Attachments:	20 December 1999 Ms Jude Chelliah Brand Manager Australia Open for Business Australian Trade Commission Level 24, 201 Kent Street Sydney NSW 2000 Dear Ms Chelliah, We are the publishers of Tomorrow's World, The Australian Initiative (ISBN 0-646-25211-9) and the customised edition of the same book titled Inventive Australia, Tomorrow's World (ISBN 0-646-25348-4). It has been brought to our attention that you have, without our knowledge or consent nor any payment or credit to us, plagiarised and published material from our book in your Internet website Australia Open for Business published at http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au, for 16-months, from 30 July 1998 to date. We enclose some examples of work plagiarised from our book on marked copies of the following pages of your website. http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au/aus/aus_innovation_case.asp?TLCaseStudyId=49 http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au/aus/aus_innovation_case.asp?TLCaseStudyId=50 You are clearly in breach of our copyright. We contend your website, misrepresented to the general public and the business community worldwide, and in all likelihood to your Stakeholders that its contents are original. The effect of your actions is not yet fully known but an investigation is underway to identify the extent of your breach and the financial loss it has and will cause. In the meantime we seek the following undertakings from you: 1. That you will immediately remove all content from your website containing work plagiarised from our book, 2. that you will publish a prominent globally unrestricted public notice on the page currently headlined "Australian Innovation" and named "aus_innovation.asp" at your website, informing visitors that your website has been in breach of our copyright, and that it was not an original work, for a period of 16-months, 3. that you will write to all the members of your "Stakeholders" informing them that your website has been in breach of our copyright, and was not an original work. These undertakings, along with a draft copy of your proposed public notice and letter for our input and final approval, must be received by us via email, facsimile or mail no later than 6.00pm Friday 31 December 1999. Unless you are able to put forward any evidence which satisfactorily disproves our contentions or provide us with the above undertakings, we propose to write to your Stakeholders and publish a public notice in the Internet edition of our book at http://apc-online.com/twa/ for a period of 16-months, informing our readers of your actions, and thereafter reserve the right to take any appropriate action to redress this serious wrong doing. We await your urgent response. Yours faithfully, Michael Soker Managing Director Copy: Mr Charles Jamieson, Managing Director
Transcript	20 December 1999 Mr Charles Jamieson Managing Director Australian Trade Commission Level 24, 201 Kent Street Sydney NSW 2000 Dear Mr Jamieson, It has been brought to our attention that your Internet website Australia Open for Business published at http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au contains material plagiarised from our book Tomorrow's World, The Australian Initiative, also published as Inventive Australia, Tomorrow's World. I enclose a copy of my letter to Ms Jude Chelliah, Brand Manager responsible for publishing the content of your website, detailing our complaint and seeking various undertakings from your commission by 6.00pm Friday 31 December 1999. We await your urgent response. Yours faithfully, Michael Soker Managing Director
Transcript	To: Mr Michael Soker Managing Director Associated Publishing Corporation Pty Ltd Fax: 9475 1483 From:   Christine Williams Phone: 9390 2102 Fax: 9390 2777 Date: 23 December 1999 Dear Mr Soker, I acknowledge receipt of your letter to the Managing Director dated 20 December 1999 and received today. Inquiries will be commenced into the matters you have raised and a reply sent as soon as possible. Yours faithfully Christine Williams Assistant to the Managing Director
Transcript	To: Mr Michael Soker Managing Director Associated Publishing Corporation Pty Ltd   Tel: 9969 6307 Fax: 9475 1483 From:   Julia Selby Executive General Manager Australian Operations Phone: 9390 2128 Fax: 9390 2718 Date: 24 December 1999 Total Pages: 1 Dear Mr Soker, I refer to your letter dated 20 December 1999 to Mr Charles Jamieson, Managing Director, regarding material appearing on the Australia Open for Business website. Your letter was received on 23 December and I am replying on behalf of Mr Jamieson, who is currently on leave. We acknowledge your concerns and will take immediate steps to investigate your allegation that the material used is in breach of copyright. For your information, the material was removed from the website on 20 December 1999 as part of our regular updating of the site. We also wish to indicate that the material used on the website is for the purpose of showcasing Australian industry in the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. As an Australian Government initiative, this is a "not for profit" campaign. At this point we will not be making any public comment regarding the alleged breach of copyright. We also wish to correct your complaint that the material was on the website for 16 months. In fact, the material appeared for a period of approximately three and a half months. I have instigated a thorough investigation of this matter and will contact you as soon as it is completed. Yours sincerely Julia Selby
Transcript	7 January 2000 Mr Michael Soker Managing Director Associated Publishing Corporation Pty Ltd PO Box 217 Mosman NSW 2088 Dear Mr Soker, We refer to your letter of 20 December 1999 and subsequent discussion regarding an alleged breach of copyright by use of two case studies from the 1993 "Tomorrow's World" on the Australia Open for Business website. You will now be aware that the material first appeared on the site on 15 September 1999 and had been removed during a regular update of the site on 20 December 1999. The Australia Open for Business website is a "not for profit" campaign designed to showcase Australian industry in the lead up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in order to facilitate Australian exports and promote investment into Australia. The material referred to in your letter has been removed and we shall acknowledge your ownership of this material on the Australia Open for Business website. Copyright in reproducing these published works is not infringed by the Commonwealth, as the reproduction was for the purposes outlined above, pursuant to Section 183(1) of the Copyright Act 1968. If you have any further questions, please contact David Tonkin of our Legal Department on 9390 2807. Yours sincerely Julia Selby
12 January 2000
Transcript Attachments:	18 January 2000 Ms Julia Selby General Manager Australia Australian Trade Commission Level 24, 201 Kent Street Sydney NSW 2000 Dear Ms Selby, We refer to your letter dated 7 January 2000. We take your letter as an admission that you have copied parts of our book and published them on your Australia Open for Business website, and have in hindsight, sought relief under Section 183(1) of the Copyright Act 1968. That being so, we disagree with your view that such acts are not in breach of our copyright. Indeed, a reading of Section 183(4) of the Act would appear to reinforce our contention. We note your reference to "not for profit" in the context of copyright legislation and without traversing matters of definition, you have at the very least, copied material from our publication to your website and thereafter represented to your readers and Stakeholders the copied publication as an original work. This is clearly a misrepresentation which ought to be brought to the attention of those parties who have been misled. We refute your statement that the offending material was removed on 20 December 1999. This is untrue. We attach copies of the offending pages accessed on your website today. Clearly, the material has not been removed. In the circumstances and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we further reject your assertion that you first published a copy of our work on 15 September 1999. We see nothing of substance in your letter dated 7 January 2000 that alters the views we first held in our letter to your Commission dated 20 December 1999, addressed to Ms Jude Chelliah. Unless you are able to provide ourselves with a more convincing argument to ground your stance in not providing the undertakings sought, we shall have no alternative but to take such steps as are appropriate to protect our position. Yours faithfully, Michael Soker Managing Director
Transcript	27 January 2000 Mr Michael Soker Managing Director Associated Publishing Corporation Pty Ltd PO Box 217 Mosman NSW 2088                         By Facsimile: 9475 1483 Dear Mr Soker, I refer to your letter of 18 January 2000 and advise I have been asked to reply on behalf of Ms Selby. You have provided, in your latest correspondence an indication that material in which you claim copyright has not been removed from our web site. We wish to confirm that the case studies, along with any other material reproduced from "Tomorrow's World" was removed from the Australia Open for Business web site on 20 December 1999. I am advised by our IT staff that the material may still seem to be available because you may be accessing the site through your internet browser using the version you looked at previously. In order to view the site which is currently available to the public, you need to press "Shift/Refresh". When you review the site you will also see that not only has the material been removed but that we have published an acknowledgement of your claim to copyright in the materials reproduced at the Australia Open for Business web site. We believe our use of the case studies on the Australia Open for Business web site did not consitute a publication of the work (S183(8) nor was it a breach of copyright (S183(1). However, we are fully prepared to comply with any other requirements of the legislation such as providing information to you on the use of such material (S183(4). Given the operation of the legislation, we believe the Commonwealth has not breached copyright in your material and cannot make a statement to the contrary. We hope this addresses your concerns and resolves the issues between us. Yours faithfully, David Tonkin Legal Counsel
27 January 2000
Transcript	7 February 2000 Mr David Tonkin Legal Counsel Australian Trade Commission Level 24, 201 Kent Street Sydney NSW 2000 Dear Mr Tonkin, We refer to your facsimile letter dated 27 January 2000. We again refute your statement that the offending material was removed from the Australia Open for Business website on 20 December 1999. The material still remains on the website. The matter is far from being resolved and we assume, given your letter of 27th January 2000, that you again refuse to provide the undertakings sought. The matter could have been resolved by jointly preparing a public notice to be published at the Australia Open for Business website, and jointly preparing a letter to the website's Stakeholders. You refused and, without reference to us published a notice on the website which was clearly inadequate and failed to address the key issues of importance to us. You were given the opportunity to satisfactorily resolve the dispute. Your efforts fell short of the mark and you were so advised. We seek only to protect our interests and rights. We do not propose to engage in any further correspondence with Austrade given that the communications to date have failed to resolve the dispute. Yours faithfully, Michael Soker Managing Director
Transcript Recipient List: The Hon Mark Vaile MP Minister for Trade Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade Mr Philip Holt Managing Director Australian Business Mr. Campbell Anderson President Business Council of Australia Mr Mark Paterson Chief Executive Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Senator the Hon Nick Minchin Minister for Industry, Science and Resources Department of Industry Science & Resources Mr John Morse Managing Director Australian Tourist Commission The Hon Peter Beattie MLA Premier Queensland State Government The Hon Kate Carnell MLA Chief Minister The Office of Business Development and Tourism The Hon John Brumby MP Minister for State and Regional Development Business Victoria The Hon John Olsen, MP Premier South Australian Government The Hon Richard Court, MLA Premier Western Australian Government The Hon Robert Carr, MP Premier New South Wales Government The Hon Jim Bacon Premier Tasmanian Government The Hon Denis Burke, MLA Chief Minister Northern Territory Government	7 February 2000 The Hon Mark Vaile MP Minister for Trade Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Dear Minister, Re: Australia Open for Business website We have been communicating with the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade), the publishers of the above website, in respect of a serious matter which was brought to our attention late last year. We assume that as a Stakeholder in the website you are aware of our complaint, but in the event you are not, we summarise it briefly as follows:- Our publication, Tomorrow's World, The Australian Initiative (and its special edition customised for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade titled Inventive Australia, Tomorrow's World), recognised nationally as the definitive book of Australian innovation, includes a detailed history of Australian inventions, and reviews some 300 currently commercially available Australian world first and world best products and technologies. Austrade has, copied and adopted as their own certain material from our book, and published the material in the Australia Open for Business website at http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au. At no time did Austrade request or have permission to make use of our material for whatever purpose or reason, nor at any time prior to our complaint did Austrade notify us that they had used our copyright material for the services of the Crown as is required of the Commonwealth by the Copyright Act 1968. Further, we believe that Austrade's website has misrepresented to the general public and the business community worldwide, and quite possibly to it's Stakeholders that its contents are original. In the absence of an express denial we shall assume our belief is accurate. On 20 December 1999 we wrote to both Ms Jude Chelliah, Brand Manager of Australia Open for Business at Austrade, and Mr Charles Jamieson, Managing Director of Austrade enclosing some examples of work clearly plagiarised from our book, at the same time raising objection to their actions. To date we have received nothing from those persons or their designates which satisfactorily disproves our contentions. We also sought undertakings from Austrade in an attempt to minimise the effect of their actions but to date the undertakings are not forthcoming. Indeed Austrade have categorically refused to provide the undertakings sought or any others by way of compromise. Furthermore, despite numerous assurances from Austrade that they have removed the offending pages, the material still remains on the website, at the following URLs: http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au/aus/aus_innovation_case.asp?TLCaseStudyId=49 http://www.australiaforbusiness.com.au/aus/aus_innovation_case.asp?TLCaseStudyId=50 The recalcitrance of the commission is astonishing. It is also beyond comprehension that an organisation who purports to help Australians win export business and generate investment, and whose board members include prominent Australians, would even consider plagiarising the work of an Australian publisher in an attempt to further its own aspirations. Austrade have recently taken it upon themselves to publish a notice at the Australia Open for Business website, which in our view does not overcome the difficulties they have created for themselves. In that notice, Austrade state that "Associated Publishing Corporation Pty Ltd claims copyright in the case studies named 49 and 50 first published on this site on 15 September 1999." The notice is clearly inadequate and fails to address the key issues of importance to us. Given that negotiations to resolve the dispute have proved unsuccessful we believe a direct communication from ourselves is warranted, particularly as we now intend to publish a public notice in the Internet edition of our book at http://apc-online.com/twa, informing our readers of Austrade's actions. Yours faithfully, Michael Soker Managing Director
Transcript	10 February 2000 Ms Jude Chelliah Brand Manager Australia Open for Business Australian Trade Commission Level 24, 201 Kent Street Sydney NSW 2000 Dear Ms Chelliah, We refer to your telephone call yesterday 9 February 2000 at 6:00pm requesting a meeting to tell us more about your Australia Open for Business website. As you will be aware, we have already advised your legal counsel Mr David Tonkin on 7 February 2000 that we do not propose to engage in any further correspondence with Austrade given that the communications to date have failed to resolve the dispute. However, should you wish to either make the undertakings we originally sought from you or indeed provide others by way of compromise, we would of course be happy to meet with you and re-open discussions with your commission. Yours faithfully, Michael Soker Managing Director