"'Curse the Law!': unravelling the copyright complexities in Marcus Clarke 's His Natural Life"

Export | Feedback | Print
Resource Text: Article
Title "'Curse the Law!': unravelling the copyright complexities in Marcus Clarke 's His Natural Life"
Creator Contributors
Abstract/Description Few colonial novels have permeated Australia’s literary psyche to the extent of Marcus Clarke ’s convict novel, His Natural Life. Yet, in spite of the popularity of this tale, it is often said that Clarke was unable to exploit its success financially due to the copyright laws in force in the colonies and the British empire at that time. In this paper, I analyse those colonial copyright statutes and illustrate the confusion that both Clarke and contemporary publishers experienced when dealing with copyright and how this affected re-publication of the story. I subsequently evaluate four issues with respect to colonial and imperial copyright and the protection of His Natural Life: the subsistence of copyright in the original serial version; the ownership of that copyright; and copyright protection for the subsequent 1874 Robertson and 1875 Bentley book editions, in the colonies and the United Kingdom respectively.
Related Works
Related Contributors
Item URL
Publisher University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series
Date Issued 8 November 2010
Language English
Citation Catherine Bond, "'Curse the Law!': unravelling the copyright complexities in Marcus Clarke 's His Natural Life", University of New South Wales Faculty of Law Research Series, 8 November 2010
Data Set AusStage
Resource Identifier 51784