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As a one-time anthology editor, I have been following this thread with
interest. In my view, the point about copyright is not that it is
necessarily bad in itself but that copyright holders either abuse it or
apply it inappropriately. The current public spat about John Clare
copyrights would be a good example of this. Similarly, with regard to poetry
most UK publishers seem happy to abide by the fair dealing guidelines -
which are not legally binding - agreed between The Society of Authors and
the Publishers' Association - all except Faber. They recently charged me 42
quid for quoting a few lines of Douglas Dunn in a paper in Textual Practice
but it is widely accepted that it costs the average organisation at least
150 quid to raise and process an invoice so what was the point? Finally,
when the Bloodaxe New Poetry was done and dusted, myself and my co-editors
did seriously consider an anthology of international long poems in English.
But the permissions killed it - from memory the project got to poem number 7
or 8 and the bill was already nine grand! And so interested readers are
denied access to culture's closed shop...
Cheers
David




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