Speech Festival stifled by publishers' unfair copyright demands
The annual speech festival for students is almost upon us again, and again it has become more difficult for teachers and students to obtain poems and prose pieces at a reasonable price.
The festival has become the focal point for students to experience English from a literary perspective, but without some innovative measures from festival organisers to help schools with the material, I fear more and more students will be denied this valuable experience.
Is it too much to expect that the publishing houses be asked to donate the relevant works to the festival or, failing this, that the organisers set up a mechanism whereby the individual pieces can be purchased via the internet?
I am sure the publishers and writers understand the long-term benefits to making selected works easily available to their future consumers, the children and young people of today.
MATTHEW BOND, Lantau Island
