The James Joyce estate was accused by Mr David Norris (Independent) of opposing in an arbitrary and capricious way every attempt to make use of the author's output.
Scholarly work was being frustrated in a mean and spiteful manner, contended the Trinity senator, who is an authority on the works of Joyce. It was important that people be protected against this kind of behaviour, he said in the debate on the Copyright Bill.
Last Bloomsday he had been contacted by RTE, which wanted to do some small excerpts with a commentary. "They were intimidated by the James Joyce Estate, who immediately got on."
A global Internet reading of Ulysses, organised to mark Bloomsday, had been a huge success, said Mr Norris. But the estate had taken action over it for no reasonable cause.
He wanted to know what the descendants of famous writers had done to participate uniquely and dictatorially in the estates of authors for up to 70 years after their deaths. How far could this be stretched?
Mr Norris said the writer Bram Stoker was a cousin of his grandmother. "Should I say I want to get something out of a reproduction of Dracula? It's absolute nonsense. I never met the man."
Why should the grandson of an author of the stature of Joyce have the right to dictate to everybody, to refuse permission for reprints or to extract huge sums of money from anybody who dared to do this?
In English law, and he presumed in Irish law, there was a doctrine of fair usage, but fair usage had yet to be quantified.
Mr Paul Coghlan (FG) noted that the National Newspapers of Ireland had serious concerns about key aspects of the legislation. He was anxious that sufficient time be made available before the next stage of the Bill to allow for a more detailed examination so that suitable amendments could be tabled.
The NNI had stated that the reformulated provisions of Section 23 (2) of the Bill did not adequately address their difficulties and ultimately these would be served only by the deletion of any residual rights in favour of employed journalists.
While the new provision obviously intended that copyright in all work generated by employed journalists would be owned by the employer in the ordinary way, the employed journalist was still allowed to make use of the work in any way he or she pleased other than giving it to another newspaper or periodical.
This revision, on its face, made it easier for newspaper proprietors to pursue pirates. But while this might be so to some extent, clearly significant problems could arise.
Firstly, there was nothing to stop the employed journalist promoting his work in the public domain other than by way of another newspaper or periodical or by television or radio, thereby potentially mandating an employed journalist to undermine his employer in the marketplace in circumstances where it was unlikely that the employer could complain that such conduct amounted to a breach of the journalist's contract of employment or implied obligations as to confidentiality.
Further, because material might come into the public domain legitimately via the journalist who wrote the piece, there was considerable potential for pirates to muddy the waters if ever they were attacked for infringement of the newspaper's copyright by alleging that they came by the piece via another, more circuitous but ultimately legitimate route.
The provision as contained in Section 23 (2) was unique to the newspaper industry and did not apply to other media or other industries or professions.
In almost every walk of life, copyright in the work of an employee who was employed in a creative capacity belonged to the employer. NNI was asking for the same regime to apply to newspapers.
Some publishers viewed Section 23 (2) as arcane in its perspective of news and information in this electronic age, as it afforded absolutely no protection to newspapers in competing businesses.
Irish newspapers had to compete on a daily basis with imported newspapers - the level of which was the highest in Europe - and with other foreign sources of information, the vast majority of which owned, without qualification, the copyright of all material generated by their employees.
INN felt it was essential that they be allowed to compete on a level playing pitch. This could be achieved effectively only by treating all employers equally in the proposed new legislation.
Mr Tom Kitt, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, said the principal objectives of the Bill were: first, to put in place a modern, effective, efficient, technology-neutral regime of statutory protection for copyright and related rights, including provision for civil remedies and criminal penalties fully sufficient to deter copyright theft, bearing in mind the economic and cultural consequences of such theft in the context of the Information Society.