The Government is bringing emergency legislation before the Seanad today to ensure that a major exhibition of James Joyce's work is not blocked by a copyright dispute.
The Government paid €12.6 million in 2001 for more than 500 sheets written by Joyce, including drafts of eight episodes of Ulysses as well as proofs of Finnegans Wake. The material will form the centrepiece of the National Library's James Joyce and Ulysses exhibition, due to open on June 14th. The biggest staged by the National Library, it will mark Bloomsday 1904, the day on which the events described in Ulysses take place.
However, Mr Stephen Joyce, the author's grandson, has warned the library that the exhibition could breach copyright legislation. His intervention created significant problems, the library's acting director, Mr Aongus Ó hAonghusa, acknowledged to The Irish Times last evening. "It is a shot across the bows. We have no option but to keep going until somebody tells us to stop. (But) it makes the holding of the exhibition problematic," he declared.
The threat to the exhibition has been caused by the 2000 Copyright Act which creates a doubt about its ability to display manuscripts bought by the State because the Joyce estate still holds copyright.
Discussions have taken place involving the library, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
The Government will today bring the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2004 before the Seanad to deal with the library's difficulties. It "will remove any doubt as to the right of any person to place literary or artistic works protected by copyright or copies thereof on public exhibition without committing a breach of copyright", according to an explanatory memorandum of the legislation.
The author's grandson has frequently had difficult relationships with people seeking to publish extracts from Joycean works, threatening legal action on numerous occasions. Last year, he warned the organisers of the Bloomsday centenary festival, "Rejoyce Dublin 2004" and the Government that he would sue for any breach of the estate's copyright.
The warnings, which were delivered to RTÉ and others, ended plans for public readings of Ulysses and a proposal by the Abbey Theatre to stage Joyce's play, Exiles. Copyright on Joyce's works ran out on December 31st, 1991, 50 years after his death. However, EU regulations revived copyright from July 1995 when it extended the lifetime of copyright to 70 years.
