Kerry B. Collison Asia News: China’s Dark Secret Is Out, But The World Is Silen...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: China’s Dark Secret Is Out, But The World Is Silen...: China’s Dark Secret Is Out, But The World Is Silent While the horrific stories of China’s re-education programme have uncovered the r...

China’s Dark Secret Is Out, But The World Is Silent

China’s Dark Secret Is Out, But The World Is Silent

While the horrific stories of China’s re-education programme have uncovered the rampant assault on the identity and culture of the Uyghur Muslims, the reactions from the Muslim world are largely muted.

The western press is abuzz with stories about the “cultural cleansing” orchestrated by the Communist Party in Xinjiang region of China. While the horrific stories of China’s re-education programme have uncovered the rampant assault on the identity and culture of the Uyghur Muslims, the reactions from the Muslim world are largely muted. The spiral of silence is not limited to the Muslim community, it spans across the world to democratic countries like India where the voices for human rights and freedom are also mute.

As per media reports, the Uyghurs are detained in re-education camps where they are forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. They are coerced to criticise and denounce their own ethnic group and belief system, coupled with the indoctrination to accept the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) ideology. This process is rampant across the Xinjiang region where one million Uyghurs are detained in the camps, according to estimates of the United Nations. The Chinese government is spending an immense amount of money on building new camps and security infrastructure in the region. In the eyes of party propagandists, these camps are similar to hospitals for the treatments of an “ideological illness.” The torture in these re-education camps has, in many cases, led to the death of detainees but so far there is no estimate of a death toll.

One news report quotes a party official saying: “Ideological illnesses are the same as physical illnesses, in that they must be treated in time, and should never be ignored and allowed to become serious. Otherwise, later we will regret it, as it will be too late.. Being infected by religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology and not seeking treatment is like being infected by a disease that has not been treated in time, or like taking toxic drugs.”

There is, in fact, a significant influence of religious extremism and radicalization in Xinjiang, but the Communist Party is holding the entire population of this ethnic minority with separatist tendencies hostage in the name of religious extremism. China’s reaction is out of proportion and has faced severe criticism from the UN and American officials. What started as a campaign to eradicate extremist elements in the region has now become a widespread campaign to culturally integrate the Uyghurs.

Xinjiang, the largest province of China, covers an area of 1,660,000 sq km, and has a population of around 22 million. Aksai Chin, a part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by China is part of the same region and shares borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. Uyghurs are one of the 55 officially recognised minority groups in China and constitute 45 percent of the Xinjiang population.

While the ethnic minority is at the receiving end of the worst form of persecution, the world does not bat an eye.

China’s all-weather friend Pakistan has not deemed it right to raise a voice for the Uyghurs. Pakistanis have, in their self-proclamations, shown great zeal defending, supporting and protecting Muslims across the world. Be it the cause of Palestinians, the persecution of Rohingyas or any other issue of Muslims, Pakistanis are always on the forefront.

However, in the case Uyghur Muslims the trumpet has lost the sound. Not just the government of Pakistan but also the people of Pakistan, including the liberals and Mullahs are on the same page. Their silence has given a tacit approval to the persecution of Uyghurs and thus become a passive accomplice of China.

On the other hand, the Muslim world has also been conspicuously silent, a hypocrisy quite similar to that of Pakistan. The Arab world, owing to vested interests, has seemingly ignored the fact that one million Muslims are being forced into camps to cleanse their belief in Islam. In fact, the Chinese authorities have declared them a disease suffering with “ideological illness” to justify torture and forceful indoctrination.

This selective outrage is another indicator of how the champions of the Islamic cause can betray an ethnic Muslim community, for their own stakes. Islamists, who are known for decreeing against the persecution of Muslims, seem unfazed by the plight of Uyghurs.

Similarly, no one is outraged in India. China has in the past, needled India on the Kashmir issue, but India could respond in equal measure by raising the persecution of Uyghurs at the diplomatic level. After the Doklam crisis, New Delhi has avoided antagonizing Beijing. Therefore, it is very unlikely that the Indian government will voice concerns on the issue.

In the past, the champions of human rights and civil liberties in India have raised an empathetic cry in favour of the Rohingyas, and organised demonstrations in favour of the Palestinians, and most recently, on the issue of shifting the US Embassy in Jerusalem. The Left in India has advocated for many global causes and has always walked hand-in-hand with the Muslims of the country, to raise a voice against the wrongful persecution of Muslims. Yet, both the Left and Muslims in India are abnormally silent on the issue.

China is setting a dangerous precedent in Xinjiang. It is imperative for the global Muslim community and human rights defenders to treat the Palestinians, Rohingyas and Uyghurs on an equal pedestal, and impose pressure on Beijing to stop its evil campaign in Xinjiang.

By Khalid Shah

 

 

 

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: China’s Maritime Silk Road Strategically Impacts I...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: China’s Maritime Silk Road Strategically Impacts I...: China’s Maritime Silk Road Strategically Impacts Indo-Pacifc Security – Analysis China’s Maritime Silk Road projects underway in the ...

China’s Maritime Silk Road Strategically Impacts Indo-Pacifc Security – Analysis

China’s Maritime Silk Road projects underway in the last two years emerges as a direct strategic and military challenge to the Indo Pacific Security Template adopted by the United States, India and Japan as it aims to establish a China-dominated maritime grid spanning the maritime global commons of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean region.

 

Security and stability in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean Region are essential imperatives for the overall security and stability of the vast Indo Pacific Region spanning the Western Pacific and encompassing the Western Indian Ocean. China has already been successful in converting the South China Sea into a regional and global flashpoint and now by its attempts for an intrusive presence in the Indian Ocean is likely to generate similar ‘flashpoint contours’.

The United States and India along with Japan and Australia have legitimate security stakes in ensuring the freedom of navigation and unimpeded access in the global commons that constitute the vast maritime expanses of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Strategic convergences which flow from this strategic convergence should bind the United States, India, Japan and Australia to band together and ensure that the ‘freedom of the high seas’ is ensured.

China’s Maritime Silk Road enterprise is not an economic response but a strategic and military response to the United States ‘Strategic Pivot to Asia Pacific’ and India’s ‘Look East Policy’ assuming more proactive contours as ‘Act East Policy’ incorporating Indian Navy presence in the South China Sea and Western Pacific. China if it was a responsible member of group of Major Global Powers should have collaborated with them in maintaining security and stability in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Regrettably, its demonstrated track record was the opposite and hence invited countermeasures.

China forgets that the above-mentioned strategic responses by the United States and India and which find equal resonance with Japan and Australia were the logical responses to China’s not so benign military rise and China’s aims to evict the United States from the Western Pacific and a double encirclement of India both in the Himalayan Borders in the North and open a new maritime flank in the South in the Indian Ocean.

 

In an overall calibrated maritime strategy China commenced its opening moves in the South China Sea in the closing years of the last decade and is now assiduously engaged in challenging the status quo in the Indian Ocean Region. China’s track record in illegal military occupation of the South China Sea by aggressive military brinkmanship and over-militarisation there has put the Major Global Powers on notice in terms of China’s real strategic intentions.

China’s ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ of the South China Sea not only endangers the survival of US Allies in the region like Japan and South Korea but also of Vietnam and the Philippines which have suffered unprovoked Chinese aggression in the form of their island territories being forcibly occupied and transformed into fortified Chinese military bases.

China’s intrusive naval presence in the Indian Ocean commenced with its participation in international naval patrols in the Gulf of Aden to prevent Somali piracy. Soon under cover of these naval patrols China added prowling of the Indian Ocean in the Arabian Sea segment of Chinese nuclear submarines. Surely, Chinese nuclear submarines were not required to fight Somali pirates.

China also displays double standards in terms of designation of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. China scoffs at any attempts to rename the South China Sea as it denotes China’s sovereignty over this international waterway but has no qualms in making demands that the Indian Ocean be renamed as presumably there is no ‘Chinese Ocean’.

With Chinese naval ambitions clear in terms of its strategy to dominate the Indian Ocean in much the same way as it has perpetrated in the South China Sea alarm bells should be ringing primarily in Washington and in New Delhi, bedsides Western Europe and Asian capitals.

China’s Maritime Silk Road blueprint poses a bigger strategic challenge to Indo Pacific Security when to its maritime grid are added the North-South Belt & Road strategic feeders like the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and China’s push for a parallel Corridor emanating from Yunnan and traversing the length of Myanmar. These corridors are duplicitously termed as Economic Corridors aimed at economic development of the host countries but in actual effect they are Strategic Highways giving China access to the Indian Ocean through the North Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.

China’s Maritime Silk Road project is intended to add flesh and substance to China’s global maritime ambitions as enshrined in China’s Maritime Strategy Doctrine unveiled in 2015. China realised that China devoid of China’s naval presence in ‘Distant Seas’ can never aspire to demand the recognition and respect of being a Global Power.

China’s burning ambition to emerge as a Global Power and seek ‘Strategic Equivalence’ with the United States stand discussed in Chapters 12 to 14 of my Book: ‘China-India Military Confrontation: 21st Century Perspectives (2016)

China adopting the old colonial British practise of global naval presence via the establishment of logistics refuelling stations at strategic naval locations and control of strategic choke points initially put into place its naval strategy of ‘String of Pearls’ which the Indian strategic community viewed it as the encirclement of India. Strategic encirclement of India it was but China had a larger strategic design in the initial stages itself.

China’s long term strategic thinking surpasses those of United States and India and this can be gleaned from a documented fact that China soon after 1949 initiated preparatory moves for China acquiring nuclear submarines despite the fact that at that stage China had not even mastered the intricacies of producing a nuclear bomb. It is with such a background that the United States, India, Japan and West European countries should at this stage be wide awake to the long-term Chinese strategic naval ambitions.

Emphasis is not required to highlight how critical it is that the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean which will see the main traverse of China’s Maritime Silk Road remain as free global commons permitting free flow of maritime trade and traffic unimpeded by controls sought to be established like China has attempted to impose in the South China Sea. How the major powers like the United States. India and Japan should proceed ahead in this direction will be discussed later on in this Paper. But first, a few notable observations need to be made.

China’s Maritime Silk Road has not drawn any notable support from any advanced major Powers whose trade and commerce use the sea-lanes that pass through these maritime expanses. India stands out so far as the notable abstention in lending its support to the China Maritime Silk Road and also the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Indian PM Modi even at international meets in China has refused to budge from India’s refusal as this has severe strategic implications for India,

India should never lend its support to China’s such encircling projects despite any political overtures from China.

The second notable point is that economically viable and strong Asian nations along the maritime and land routes of China’s so-called economic development routes have joined China’s One Belt One Road projects. Asian nations like Pakistan, Myanmar, Maldives and Sri Lanka have been exploited by China with massive investments for associated infrastructure but at exorbitant interest rates pulling these countries into severe ‘Debt Traps’ converting these countries into Chinese colonial entities like Pakistan.

China’s establishment of a naval base at Djibouti is a case in point as to the evolving and expanding blueprint of Chinse Maritime Strategy.

China’s access and investments in these ports like Gwadur in Pakistan, Hambantota in Sri Lanka and in Maldives facilitate use of such ports as logistics support staging points for the Chinese Navy to expand its naval sway over these maritime expanses. With passage of time and these host nations drowning further into the Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Chinese demands for berthing of Chinese Navy ships and nuclear submarines would be an expected demand.

Another point of note in relation to the Chinese Maritime Silk Road geographical configuration has been enlarging by the day with China enticing more and more economically weak nations into its fold.

Moving to the strategic implications of China’s Maritime Silk Road on the security and stability of the Indo Pacific let us first begin briefly with the impact on the United States which is not only even now as the sole Superpower straddling the globe but also has vital geopolitical and geostrategic stakes in the Western Pacific more pointedly.

China’s associated moves in the Western Pacific impacting the United States stand analysed in a number of my SAAG Papers in the past. Suffice it to state that China has tried to achieve multiple strategic objectives by illegal military occupation of the South China Sea and ensuring ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ militarily. China has manged to limit US Air-Sea Doctrine of close-in military interventions against China. China has achieved the military capability for initial impeding of US Navy transference of its Fleets from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean and vice versa. China is in a position to strangulate Japanese and South Korean economies. Lastly, this puts in place an overall cumulative Chinese strategy of prompting the United States to make a military exit from the Western Pacific.

The impact on India of this Chinese strategy encompasses a much wider strategic field because China is in direct military confrontation with India along India’s Northern Borders with China Occupied Tibet. With India no military pushover for China there is a need for China to open another front against India on its Southern Flank, namely the Indian Ocean. China’s intrusive and expanding naval presence in the Indian Ocean facilitated by Pakistan’s complicity and reinforced by China’s CPEC project is in effect turning the Western Flanks of India’s security.

China is more strategically concerned that the Indian Ocean unlike India’s Himalayan Frontiers is one area where India finds strong support from the United States, Japan, and Australia and West European countries in terms of strategic convergences. Al these countries support India’s efforts to ensure that the Indian Ocean does not get transformed into a maritime expanse where China succeeds in establishing naval dominance. This strategic convergence that India enjoys of Global Major Powers is extremely galling for China. Chapter 7 of my Book referred above examines ths aspect in detail.

This enrages China even more when it is considered that China has not been able to muster support from any leading Major Powers around the globe. Obviously, these Powers are fully aware that China’s stated motives for the Maritime Silk Road do not match China’s underlying strategic intentions as borne out by China’s demonstrated record in the South China Sea.

The crucial question that next arises is if Indo Pacific Security is in danger of being adversely impacted by China’s grandiose designs of spreading its tentacles both on the High Seas and on the Central Asian landmass, then what logical steps can the United States, India and Japan and Australia can undertake to checkmate China?

With Russia acquiescing with China’s military adventurism camouflaged in economic terms simply because it pits China against the United States—-a ‘No Cost Low Risk’ option for Russia, no assistance can be expected from Russia even when China is muscling into Russian turf in the Central Asian Republics.

Strong imperatives therefore exist for the United States,, India, Japan and Australia besides other Asian nations on China’s peripheries to cooperate intensely to ensure that both the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean are kept free from any sort of Chinese-generated turbulence or disruptive activities. It also implies that China’s propensity to exploit the economic weaknesses of smaller nations in the region is not allowed to fructify. Capacity –building of such nations both in the economic spheres ad the military realm would be a priority.

The China Threat to peace and stability in the Indo Pacific Region manifesting itself in China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean requires a strong combination of geopolitical, military and economic responses by the United States, India, Japan and Australia as the relatively more powerful nations. These responses need to be coordinated and integrated for a powerful cumulative deterrence.

The Quadrilateral Initiative amongst these four countries is one excellent move which combines the geopolitical, military and economic strengths of the United States, India, Japan and Australia. In this grouping India has been diffident weighed down by Indian policy establishment’s deference to China’s sensitivities. This should be immediately dispensed with as correspondingly China has never respected India’s strategic sensitivities.

The United States and Japan are engaged in FONOPS Naval patrols in the South China Sea and West European countries and Australia are soon to join in. India does maintain a rotational naval presence in these waters but it is held back from joining in Joint Naval Patrolling. Perhaps here too India’s diffidence because of the Chinese Factor overhang, India could join in if the United Nations takes a lead in organising international patrolling of the South China Sea.

Repeated many times in my past writings is the simple fact that India cannot maintain the Indian Ocean as “Indian” within its own naval capabilities. India needs the United States, Japan and Australian Navies besides those of France and UK to ensure that the Indian Ocean is kept free of China’s domination strategies.

While the United States has put into operation geopolitical and military moves to cater for the emerging China Threat in international maritime expanses of the Indo Pacific, India is yet to be fully seized with proactively responding to the Chinese naval threat on its Southern Flank. India leads long lead times to build up her military strengths dissipated by India’s neglect of the nation’s ‘War Preparedness’ by the previous ruling dispensation. India also stands mistakenly deceived by China’s spasmodic political reachout to India confusing India’s responses.

In Conclusion, I would like to emphasise that India as the pivot in the Indo Pacific Security Template led by the United States needs to be alive to playing its pivotal role to the hilt. Playing a pivotal role expected from her by the United States and India’s other Asian strategic partners involve a necessary dispensing of India’s strategic diffidence in coming to grip s squarely with threats to Indo Pacific Security. Needless to state, that India is more affected by emerging threats. And, the last point in conclusion is that India does not lose her ‘strategic autonomy’ by strategic partnering against emerging threats.

 

By SAAG

By Dr Subhash Kapila

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Word of warning "Love of Books Self Publishing Gol...

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: Word of warning "Love of Books Self Publishing Gol...: Word of warning "Love of Books Self Publishing Gold Coast Queensland" founder as complaints dog self-publisher and convicted f...

Word of warning "Love of Books Self Publishing Gold Coast Queensland"

Word of warning "Love of Books Self Publishing Gold Coast Queensland" founder as complaints dog self-publisher and convicted fraudster

 

 

'We publish some amazing stories,'' Julie Marie McGregor once boasted of her business providing specialist services for people with dreams of publishing their first books.

 

But the do-it-yourself publishing entrepreneur has an incredible story of her own involving bankruptcy, fraud and a string of complaints from disgruntled clients from Victoria, NSW, Queensland and the ACT stretching back more than three years.

 

The law caught up with McGregor on November 1, 2017, when a Southport magistrates court convicted her of three counts of dishonestly gaining thousands of dollars from three restaurants using fraudulent credit cards. She was handed a nine-month suspended sentence for what the prosecution said was a "calculated, fraudulent activity, not once but three times".

 

Acting magistrate Gary Finger described McGregor as "certainly naive to say the least" for her role in the complex fraud, in which she booked restaurant functions on fraudulent credit cards and then persuaded the restaurant owners to pay for non-existent florists and limousine services. A sobbing McGregor was told she would face jail time if she came before the courts again.

 

 

The undischarged bankrupt presented herself as a model businesswoman who had built her online publishing service from scratch only to emotionally fall apart following the death of her husband in 2015.

 

The English-born pensioner claimed to have been targeted online and convinced against her better judgment to transfer the illicitly-gained money into other accounts for which she was entitled, but rarely took, a 10 per cent commission. At the time she was grief-stricken, was downing a bottle of Bacardi a day in the months after her husband's death and was easily manipulated, her lawyer said.

 

But a number of former customers have come forward to the Sun-Herald to reveal the loss of their hard-earned savings for books they ordered from McGregor's do-it-yourself publishing business but never received, which arrived too late for book launches or were so amateurishly produced they were unsaleable.

 

It was McGregor who dealt exclusively with a Melbourne high school whose parents spent $10,000 to produce a cookbook as a Christmas fundraiser in 2016.

 

The school, which does not want to be named, paid a $4000 deposit raised from local sponsors plus a further $6000 to McGregor's business, Love of Books Brisbane, to print 1000 copies of recipe favourites.

 

 

To date the fundraisers say they have not received a single copy of the book, which was to have been delivered four weeks after the supply of artwork and content in September 2016.

 

"Ms McGregor was incredibly encouraging and promised the world initially," a parent said. "But it wasn't long before the relationship felt uneasy. It was erratic and inadequate. Work would come back poorly done, with corrections not addressed. She would be uncontactable for days. It took me 2½ weeks to get them to settle on a font while she made a litany of excuses and apportioned blame back on the school.

 

"Ms McGregor was the only person you could ever get on the phone, she was the only person who was ever there. She was frequently irrational and emotionally aggressive to deal with. It was a nightmare."

 

Prospective author Graeme Allan fell out with McGregor over his feelgood fairytale for children and adults that had been 10 years in the making.

 

Allan flew to the Gold Coast in 2016 to meet McGregor at her home and handed over cheques for $4950 to start the edit and proofreading.

 

 

After the edited manuscript was returned with grammar and spelling errors and Allan received no assistance to manage the difficult self-publishing process as promised, he notified McGregor he was terminating the contract and demanded a refund. He has yet to receive one.

 

Word of caution

 

Since the arrival of Amazon's Kindle and the e-book, it's never been easier for authors to get published – or burnt, says Juliet Rogers, executive officer of the Australian Society of Authors.

 

Beguiled by the chance to see their work in print and inexperienced in the industry, first-time writers are paying thousands of dollars for editing, print and website services with little scrutiny of contracts or knowledge of the services they are purchasing, Rogers says.

 

The high costs involved in taking a case to court, combined with the inherent risks of defamation, mean the majority of writers are unable to take the matter any further when contracts fail to live up to expectations.

 

 

Disaffected clients claim they handed over sums ranging from $2000 to $12,000 since 2013 and as recently as late 2016 to entities including Love of Books Brisbane and Books Publishing Services Australia. The projects have ranged from historical research and commercial fiction to travel guides.

 

Another complainant is a Queensland debut novelist who unsuccessfully claimed a partial refund when the deadline for her fantasy fiction "was exceeded, my manuscript edited with no permission or tracking to show where the edits took place, no finished product and then I had to pay someone else to edit it again from scratch".

 

The writer says she is still owed $4000 and has not heard a word from McGregor since she was promised the refund in August 2016. At that time, she was not advised that McGregor was a bankrupt.

 

"The first time I made contact with Julie she informed me she was 'one' of the directors and the middle man – she didn't do any of the work herself – that she had multiple 'professionals' she used in all different areas of publishing to get my book from A to Z. I later found out these were friends and family friends.''

 

Melbourne author Dean Munro signed up with McGregor a year out of university in 2014.

 

 

Having studied at RMIT University with the support of seven scholarships, and acquired a property portfolio worth more than a million dollars, Munro wanted to sing of his success in a how-to book for like-minded entrepreneurs.

 

He was persuaded to self-publish by a friend. More control, an easier path to publication, he was told.

 

Munro paid $11,850 up front to McGregor of Love of Books Self Publishing, to proofread, edit, format and typeset the manuscript and print 1000 copies of his 350-page title Breaking the Chains, as well as to set up and host a website and prepare an e-book file.

 

The Queensland Civil Administrative Tribunal subsequently ordered McGregor to refund Munro $10,488, finding she was in fundamental breach of the contract and the "applicant did not get the quality or integrity of that which had been represented he would receive and for which he paid".

 

Those breaches included printing books that were unusable for sale, that contained spelling errors and had inferior binding.The website didn't have plug-ins for PayPal and credit cards and had no search engine optimisation.

 

 

Munro is listed among creditors with claims against the bankrupt estate of McGregor.

 

The Australian Financial Security Office recently notified Munro that its investigations to date had not been able to result in the "realisation of assets" and that in "the absence of funding and/or evidence provided by creditors", it "did not intend to devote additional resources to investigate further".

 

 Ian Lewis, the director of Love of Books Australia-Wide, a separate entity, said he purchased the domain name and was given the McGregor-run websites and client list in November 2016. It was his own business name under his own ABN.

 

As such he is not responsible to refund the school or any other complainants for any failures that occurred before this time.

 

In response to a series of questions put by the Sun-Herald, McGregor conceded the school was entitled to a refund of $8000, less $2000 discount she gave for book formatting.

 

She said she had kept the order in a state of suspension so the school would not lose the deposit owed to the overseas printer.

 

 

"Of course I want them paid. Why wouldn't I? I did ring the school and ask for bank details so that I could do regular payments."

 

In earlier correspondence before her court hearing, McGregor said: "There is no way I would want anyone's money. Working with overseas suppliers especially China to get funds returned is a case of swap really. They don't like to let go of money.

 

"Late launches are a product of this industry. Why? Because clients need to ensure their book launch date coincides with the delivery of the books.

 

"If clients make too many changes to their book file contents it causes delays all round throughout this industry worldwide. However I have continually worked, even around the clock, to assist meet deadlines within logical reason on many occasions."

 

Apart from Munro, the Queensland Civil Administrative Tribunal has awarded two other authors refunds amounting to $4445.

 

 

Carmel Charlson was one who got most of her refund. Having gone through the process she understands why most people give up: "They usually win the case but lose the battle as the process is so convoluted for the average citizen."

 

McGregor disagrees with the findings of the Queensland Civil Claims Tribunal against her in the case of Dean Munro and has attempted to reopen the findings three times and unsuccessfully appealed once.

 

Munro understands there is little hope of getting his money back but wants his experience to stand as a warning to others.

 

The Arts Law Centre says writers need to be careful entering into financial arrangements with self-publishers.

 

The greatest potential for dispute arose around online publishers who offered services to print, distribute and promote an author's work, and questions of copyright, reprints and royalties. Under some terms of agreement, authors had found they were obliged to purchase copies of their own printed book at retail prices.

 

 

"Often, unfortunately, the writer is coming to us after they've signed a contract and things haven't gone the way they hoped they would," the centre's chief executive Robyn Ayres says.

 

Following the collapse of the unrelated JoJo Publishing in 2015, in which liquidators estimated more than 50 authors were owed money, the Australian Publishers Association began to develop a code of conduct for members, setting out their obligations to clients.

 

The code requires members not to partake in conduct that brings embarrassment to the industry or the association and not purposely or inadvertently to defraud authors by making false promises or unrealistic claims, particularly in regards to sales potential and distribution.

 

 

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/complaints-dog-self-publisher-and-convicted-fraudster-20161028-gsd093.html

 

 

 

Linda Morris Sydney Morning Herald

 

Kerry B. Collison Asia News: PACIFIC FORUM FARCE

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