Since entering office in the National Book Council, I have ensured that the Council serves as a bastion for the defence of authors’ rights.

The recently approved legal notice of the National Book Council obliges it to safeguard the rights of both authors and publishers at a state-policy level, meaning that whenever laws or policies are being drawn by the government or by parliament, the Council, by default, has to take the sides of authors and publishers. The Council is also obliged by law to defend the rights of authors and publishers abroad in international institutions and fora.

Whenever the rights of authors and publishers conflict, the Council is required to find a compromise between both.

One of our most recent campaigns to safeguard the rights of authors was our work done in the European-wide campaign of authors against article 12 of the currently proposed EU Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. We have opposed this article for various reasons. This article was introduced by the Commission to solve Germany’s internal rights problems after the infamous decision of the Reprobel vs HP case at the EU Court of Justice.

Unfortunately, even if article 12 is a ‘may’ provision, which means that it ‘may’ be introduced at the discretion of member states, we share the view of thousands of authors in Europe who believe that the way article 12 is written may set a precedent which will give publishers even more legal power over authors than the arguably excessive power they already wield. In literary circles this situation is known as the arena of the lion and the mouse.

One such precedent, a direct consequence of article 12 which we oppose actively, is the distribution of public lending rights to publishers when existing EU legislation clearly states that PLR is the exclusive right of the author.

Malta has been on the forefront in the struggle among member states to get a better deal for authors on article 12, and in fact, Malta has managed to convince the Bulgarian Presidency to reword the recital to the article to prevent any form of new legal precedents. We are still unhappy with the overall article, but Bulgaria’s rewording has brought a much needed and improved change.

Only Italy and Slovenia supported Malta during the member-state negotiations while Germany was adamantly for article 12. Having worked against such odds, it is only appropriate that I thank the sterling work of Malta’s diplomat in Brussels, Lorenzo Vella, who ensured that our concerns are carried forward. I’m sure that we will forever be grateful to Lorenzo and the diplomatic team in Brussels who have proudly defended the rights of authors in the negotiations to this EU directive.

This doesn’t mean that we wish to pit authors against publishers – of course not. We would like to see a harmonious balance between the two parties. Indeed, during the negotiations for the DSM directive, we have also fought tooth and nail to protect the rights of publishers when it comes to other articles. For example, we are against the introduction of a law which would allow websites to upload content without prior permission from their rights-holders, and we are also against introducing a law which gives an exception to websites to reproduce long excerpts of published content without prior permission from the rights-holder.

We believe that such laws will not serve the educational and intellectual development of our countries, but will only serve to help big internet giants such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and others to make even greater profits at the expense of small publishers who are being squeezed from every direction by these monopolies. We will always strive to see that publishers work in a safe environment.

Of course, it is always a great advantage to have government’s support and the Labour government has been greatly receptive and supportive of our bid to defend authors’ rights. The media bill recently approved by parliament is a sterling example of government’s drive to strengthen and improve laws relating to freedom of speech. This media bill is undoubtedly one of the most liberal media bills in Europe as it has abolished criminal libel and introduced the one libel-one story rule which effectively caps any libel suit to not more than €12,000 in damages – one of the lowest limits in Europe.

Government should now consolidate its stance as a leading European pioneer in free speech legislation by working with the EU Commission to introduce a new EU-wide directive which would prohibit libel tourism and SLAPP. The Labour government has also abolished censorship laws which have been used by previous right-wing governments to systematically persecute and prosecute artists and writers.

The brutal assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia has surely not helped all the legislative progress that has been made under the Labour government. Daphne’s murder has brought increased political tensions in the country. The new Daphne Project is ensuring that her death does not compromise our freedom of speech as it helps break down any possible fears journalists may have.

More robust protection measures should be provided for journalists and media houses especially when they investigate criminal organisations as Daphne was doing prior to her death. Already, three men have been charged in court with Daphne’s murder, and this has been a significant step forward, but this is not enough.

Now we need to know who ordered Daphne’s murder and for what reason. I am confident that with all the pressure being faced by our institutions, both inquiring magistrates and leading police investigators intend to get to the bottom of this case. Such a success will mark government’s consistent legacy in defending free speech and protecting authors’ rights.

https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/86683/safeguarding_authors_rights#.WvFQ-x8xInQ

Lou Drofenik is not a new name in the Maltese literary scene. A Maltese-Australian author based in Melbourne, Drofenik, who writes in English, started by self-publishing her first novel Birds of Passage in 2005 and so far has written eight novels.

The Confectioner’s Daughter is Drofenik’s first novel to be published by Horizons, a relatively new and upcoming Maltese publisher. Horizons’ foresight served it well. The Confectioner’s Daughter won the National Book Prize for novels published in 2016. This is the first time a novel written in English has won the Prize since the National Book Council introduced the bilingual rule putting both English and Maltese, as State official languages, on an equivalent platform.

Winning a prize in the novels category against competition by renowned authors such as Immanuel Mifsud makes the recognition to Drofenik even more prestigious and rightly so. Lou Drofenik had already received two National Book Prizes for her novels, one in 2008 with In Search of Carmen Caruana and another one in 2011 with Cast The Long Shadow. She was twice awarded the Australian North Central Literary Award for Cloves and Bitter Almonds and Beloved Convict.

Although Drofenik’s position as the best English-writing Maltese novelist was practically undisputed given the lack of Maltese literature in English, the fact that she has proved her mastery alongside other renowned Maltese authors, irrespective of the language used, means that her place in the Maltese literary canon is assured. Here we are speaking of undoubtedly one of the most significant contemporary Maltese writers.

The novel is lucid, gripping, dynamic and reads like a film by Giuseppe Tornatore. It is set in early 20th century Malta, where the patriarchal establishment rules over women with overwhelming force, the voice of women is often muffled and women tend to keep to themselves.

In a small village environment which can easily turn hostile and violent towards independent women who make choices outside of the norm, the rags-to-riches success of a poor baker turned confectioner who inherits a small bakery from her deceased father is welcomed by her fellow villagers with both envy and respect. Her younger Sicilian husband, whom she married after bribing a priest to marry them off quickly after having conceived his child, is murdered leaving Ġuditta, the confectioner, alone to run her business and bring up her child.

The good side of Malta comes to light when friends and even unknown strangers empathise with her and come forward to help her. As the daughter of the strong-willed Ġuditta grows in the stifling patriarchal environment of the village, a sense of freedom and independence grows with her. Licia, the confectioner’s daughter, leaves the island for greener pastures only to find new challenges of a different kind, yet of a similar nature.

The story shows Malta in its many different aspects. The ugly, superstitious, overtly zealous and religious, male-centred society, while on the other hand there is also love, independence, solidarity and social justice. Women are at the centre of the story and throughout the novel face great challenges, making the theme of women’s emancipation strongly present in both the background and foreground of the story.

As the story spans through generations we see the characters evolve and grow along with their changing historical environment providing a socio-historical background to Maltese society from the eyes of female characters. Drofenik, a Maltese emigrant who went to Australia in the 1960s, during the decade in which tens of thousands of Maltese left the islands in search for a better life, knows very well the great challenges faced by Maltese women back then.

In her unpublished paper A Moment of Rebellion, Drofenik writes that her decision to immigrate to Australia was driven by her desire to own her life; to recreate herself while seeking liberation from the clutches of old prescribed customs which her home society had long imposed on her. Similarly, Licia, who leaves Malta for good, recreates her life from scratch – a daunting and challenging task in comparison to staying in Malta in the comfort and security of her mother’s home.

The characters of Licia and Ġuditta are a rare class of female characters in Maltese literature: strong-willed, independent and defiant. To many young women today who may still experience the stifling patriarchal nature of Maltese society, Licia and Ġuditta may be inspirational characters. Female heroes are rare in the Maltese literary scene, but they are also so in literature all over the world.

Lou Drofenik’s National Book Prize for The Confectioner’s Daughter as the best Maltese novel in 2016 has coincided with the global debate on women’s rights, sparked by the outcry over sexual abuse and misconduct on actresses in Hollywood by powerful men in the film industry. Drofenik may be writing about stories which are set in the past, but she may also be writing about many traits which are still with us to their very day. With The Confectioner’s Daughter, Drofenik may have written not only a historical novel, but a political manifesto for the liberation of women.

When the government released its sloppy and badly-drafted Media and Defamation Bill back in February the lobby for freedom of speech and expression felt betrayed. The media bill proposed to double civil libel fines and failed to remove criminal libel from the list of indictable offences.

The publication of stories based on unsubstantiated claims, appearing both online and in the press at around the same time, was deemed as grounds enough by a faction of government supporters to endorse a bill which aimed to stifle free speech even further than before.

We were worried and rightly so.

The Front against Censorship was quick to react. We launched a campaign of strong opposition to the bill. We analysed the bill thoroughly and presented clear-cut counter-proposals. The government responded by inviting us for talks. The talks were very intensive and it took some time until the government consented to our proposed changes to the bill, a demanding exercise in which I was helped by my colleagues Ingram Bondin and Andrew Sciberras.

It is only right that the government should be praised for accepting most of our proposals, which included the universalisation of the right of protection of sources (instead of having it restricted solely to those in the media register), the complete abolition of criminal libel, the removal of colonial vilification laws related to the President and the Flag of the Republic, the consolidation of a single-publication rule, the removal of the obligation for members of the media to register with the proposed media register and the capping of civil libel damages to their current level. It is worth mentioning that the government was initially adamant that it would double civil libel damages, but now these will not be increased and they will remain at the current level.

This bill is partly a copy from the UK defamation Act which is a good model to follow as long as you cap the damages, and tweak and modify several other points. Admittedly, the government didn’t accept all our proposals, some of which were very technical, but we can safely say that this bill is an important progressive step forward for the consolidation of the right of freedom of speech in our country.

This bill will also help induce a safer environment for journalists since it gives the explicit message that journalists and writers have the right to criticise and investigate incisively with greater freedom than before. Thanks to the single-publication rule, one can’t open a libel case on each and every re-publication of a story – there can only be one case for every story, irrespective how many times this story has been published.

Libel laws have always been used by the strong and powerful to clamp down on criticism.

Big companies and politicians have repeatedly used libel laws in order to stop journalists trying to investigate cases of corporate misconduct.

This new legislation will make it even more difficult for the strong and powerful to silence criticism or journalistic investigation.

Now it is up to the media editors to step in and put forward their position and proposals when the bill goes to the second reading and more amendments may be made.

The Labour government has as of now been consistent in dismantling our censorship laws and it is continuing to do so with the help of stakeholders. We should insist that it does not lose track of this consistent progress.

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/82306/press_law_reform_is_here_lets_strengthen_this_bill#.Whp7k981snQ