Please promptly take down all materials belonging to the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English (VATE) from your website. The publication of these resources constitutes a clear violation of copyright.
Failure to remove these materials from the public domain by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, will result in the VATE pursuing legal action.
Best wishes,
[NAME]
( EMAIL FOOTER ):
The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a gift and a roadmap to peace. I support a First Nations Voice to Parliament, enshrined in the constitution. I will share in this historic legacy by voting yes in a referendum.
Hello,
Please remove all VATE publications from your website immediately. You are currently breaching copyright and we will follow-up with a legal request for removal.
The VATE publications clearly state:
© VATE 2023 May be used for educational purposes only by the individual purchaser or within the institution that has purchased the resource. All educational institutions copying any part of this resource must be covered by the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) Licence for educational institutions and must have given a remuneration notice to CAL.
Best wishes,
[NAME]
( EMAIL FOOTER ):
I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I work and live, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.
Hello,
I have had the VATE inside stories guides for some time but I didn't have any intention to upload them until recently. From my understanding these resources are created for teachers as "teaching notes". This is perfect because teachers don't really use vce.rocks as they are able to purchase teaching resources using the school's budget. I figured that these resources are still valuable for students to use so they might as well be accessible as students would never buy them in the first place.
teachers buying through theirs schools + students never buying in the first place = no lost revenue for you! Yay!
This way more students are exposed to your brand and more students gain access to resources they otherwise wouldn't have had.
I think this is a great win-win overall for everybody.
Thank you for reaching out.
Hello,
It is VATE’s intellectual property that we own as indicated in the copyright information that I sent you in my previous email.
Remove all VATE products immediately. You are breaching copyright laws.
We are currently pursuing legal advice and action.
Best wishes,
[NAME]
( EMAIL FOOTER ):
I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I work and live, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.
Hi [NAME],
Sorry for the late response.
I want to start by emphasizing that my website is non-profit, and was created to assist students, especially economically disadvantaged students, to access educational resources. I want to also emphasize that I try hard to minimize my site's negative impact on authors. I have previously removed specific textbooks, such as (SMALL BUSINESS) because they are a small business, and ATAR Notes as they make less sales than textbook companies, and their books are created by student authors. I also take down all textbooks over the summer holidays, as that is the main textbook buying period.
Similar to ATAR Notes, I will strongly consider taking down VATE textbooks to avoid harming its authors, who I suspect are also tertiary students. However, I truly fail to see how atar.rocks is harming VATE’s authors. As far as I know, VATE’s textbooks are only available to teachers. I don’t see why any teacher would choose to pirate textbooks, if their school is willing to buy them. It might be used by teachers in schools that can’t afford to purchase VATE’s textbooks, but I don’t see how that harms VATE, or its authors. If anything, I believe hosting VATE textbooks will promote them to a large number of students, some of whom will potentially tell their teachers about them. If you believe I'm wrong, and atar.rocks is harming VATE, or it's authors, please let me know?
From your email signature, your previous Uluru Statement email signature, and your decision to work for a non-profit, I can see that you also feel strongly about helping end discrimination and disadvantage. As such, I am truly very interested what your response to this email is, and I will strongly consider acting on it. I’d also be very open to a compromise, such as adding a watermark to all the VATE PDFs making clear they aren’t legitimate copies, to discourage schools from pirating them, without discouraging students from accessing them.
Please consider my points, and I look forward to your response!
Kind regards
Hello,
As you stated, VATE is a not-for-profit organisation. We exist to support our members.
Our members are the authors of these publications – we ensure that they and the editors are paid the ASA rates and for many titles we make no profit; for some titles, it takes us a couple of years to recover the costs of the writer, editor, designer. However, we are committed to ensuring every VCE text is covered for the benefit of our members.
These resources are written for teachers and were never intended to be a student resource.
It is disappointing that you fail to see the importance of our work with our membership and the rights of VATE vis-à-vis copyright. It is disappointing that I have had to spend time dealing with this issue, consulting copyright law, and potentially engaging lawyers. We are a small staff of six and work very hard to support and advocate for our members. I would like to get back to this important work and not have to deal with such vexatious matters.
As I stated in my first email, please remove all VATE resources from your website.
Best wishes,
[NAME]
( EMAIL FOOTER ):
I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I work and live, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.