Australian government buys copyright to Aboriginal flag after disputes over its use

FILE PHOTO: Aboriginal flags
REUTERS
Matt Watts25 January 2022

The Australian government has bought the copyright of the Aboriginal flag in a bid to “free” the symbol of indigenous pride from disputes over who can use it.

Indigenous artist Harold Thomas created the flag in 1971 as a protest image but it became the dominant Aboriginal emblem and an official national flag.

However many Aboriginal people say it was “held hostage” by copyright deals that limit its display.

The government has paid $20 million to Mr Thomas and to extinguish licences held by a small number of companies which have stirred controversy since 2018 by demanding payment for the flag’s reproduction.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt said: “Over the last 50 years we made Harold Thomas’ artwork our own - we marched under the Aboriginal flag, stood behind it, and flew it high as a point of pride.

“Now that the Commonwealth holds the copyright, it belongs to everyone, and no one can take it away.”

The deal means the flag can be used on sports shirts, sporting grounds, websites and in artworks without permission or payment of a fee, the government said on the eve of the Australia Day national holiday.

A parliamentary inquiry in 2020 said payment had been demanded from health organisations and sporting clubs, which could lead to communities stopping using the flag to avoid legal action.

Mr Thomas has previously said he leased rights to the flag to receive royalties for his artwork, and to prevent knock-offs made overseas.

“In the future, the flag will remain, not as a symbol of struggle, but as a symbol of pride and unity,” he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday.

Prominent Aboriginal Australians including former Olympian Nova Peris led a “Free the Flag” campaign.

Though Aboriginal Australians have widely welcomed the announcement on the flag, some have queried why it came 24 hours before Australia Day.

Australia Day celebrations, marked with a national public holiday on January 26, have become controversial because the date is seen by indigenous Australians as marking the invasion of their land by Britain.

It is the date a British fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1788 to start a penal colony, viewing the land as unoccupied despite encountering settlements.

There has been debate over whether to move the national holiday to another date.

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