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Australia got uniform defamation laws in 2005:

http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.html#2006

The opposition has announced Mandatory opt-out ISP-level filtering. That is, the ISP would be required to give you 'naughty-free' internet access by default unless you asked them to give you the good stuff.

Don't believe me? Here's what the EFA thinks. No doubt this policy will be rehashed as the election nears.

Free client-side filtering software for those who want it seems incredibly appealing in comparison.

Australia only had one internet policy over the past 10 years:
How can we filter it?

Please join or donate to Electronic Frontiers Australia
http://www.efa.org.au/

It gives a somewhat more accurate perspective on the case than the SMH news article referred to above.

Dale Clapperton
EFA Chair (not Vice-Chair!)

The connection appeared to hang waiting for the stylesheet, so this was only viewable by viewing the HTML source. Obviously relative links are all busted.

Basically, Dunc is an experimental project to try out ways of funding Debian development. Not paying for servers or bandwidth, or reimbursing expenses and flight costs, but actually paying people to sit down and do useful Debian work rather than some other day job.

There's info about who exactly is behind Dunc at the board page.

Dunc directly supports work on Debian, and is made up of a small group of people who use Debian and who want to see Debian improve. But Dunc is not endorsed by Debian, and Debian does not exercise any control over how Dunc operates.

A number of other groups fund Debian work directly or indirectly, whether that be by allowing or encouraging their employees to contribute to Debian, or having Debian work be part of their actual job description. Dunc does not aim to compete with those groups, either in the tasks being worked on, or in the people being recruited, but rather to address other niches in the Debian ecosystem.

Dunc is an acronym standing for "Development Under Numismatic Control" -- which could equally be called "coin-operated coding". The point of the project is to try some new possibilities of funding free and open source software development and helping people work on free software development on a full-time basis.

Really, though, the name is a reference to the linux.conf.au auction in 2003, for the t-shirt signed by the speakers, proceeds from which were directed to Electronic Frontiers Australia. To make the bidding more lively a certain individual foolishly suggested that the next Debian release would be named after the winning bidder, should the bidding go above $2000. Due to the combined resources of a table of inebriated Sun folks, Duncan Bennet won the bidding, and the right to have his name associated with the next Debian release -- which, many years later, turns out to be Debian 4.0, aka etch. So yes, this is yet another free software project that has its roots in the consumption of a little too much wine at a conference dinner.

As Dunc is an experiment, we don't know what will end up happening with it. We may decide it works perfectly as is, or that it was a horrible idea that should never have been tried. In any event, we expect to review what worked, what didn't, and what should be done over the course of the first project, and have a public discussion about what to do after the release of etch.

This site is maintained using Joey Hess's ikiwiki.

It is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2.

Notice that of all the players with something to say in this article the government is the most restrained - calling for a review but not going overboard with censorship demands.

Lets just start with saying that Big Brother as a program does not at all cater to viewers hoping to get a glimpse of something naughty happening...

At any rate, how nice that the Ausie government doesn't go overboard with censorship demands just yet.. Previous attempts and current comments give some reason however to believe that they would if they anywhere could. To witness: calling for self regulation as soon as undesired contect appears is threatening indirect censorship.

In fact, it has been the federal opposition in recent times which has called for ridiculous measures while the government has been realistic in its approach

Look there, them are even worse!

, even by the reasonable (but in earlier times typically conflicting) standards of Electronic Frontiers Australia. See http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/mandatoryblock ing.html [efa.org.au]

Believing that internet streaming can and should be regulated similar to public TV really tells all about how reasonable and knowledgable they are.

Slashdot editors - panning Australians for our bad internet regulation system may once have been fitting.

You can remove the words Australians and 'bad' there, and it wouldn't have made a difference, internet regulation will be complained about, and that does in no way depend on whom tries to implement it where (unless it is to fight spam of course)

In other words, don't be so silly to think that this was written to make Australia look bad or such.

However, it would be nice if you could review things a bit more carefully based on the evidence rather than knee-jerks to posts making grand claims about Australian policy.

What is absurd and why this is in fact something to take note of is the fact that politicians concern themselves with what was visible on some internet live video stream at 4am, as part of a program where this kind of thing was actually somewhat hoped for (ever noticed how bb actually mentions the cameras are on 24/7 and in all rooms and such, giving people the idea how they can indeed get a glimpse of 'naughty things' also).

It's annoying to see my country being portrayed as stoneage based on bad evidence. This snide post is not a story and it shouldn't have been put through.

As pointed out above, this has absolutely nothing to do with 'your country' as such. Stop trying to see it as an attack on your country if you want to have any kind of discussion about content instead of a nationalistic pissing contest.

"Australian government has once again demonstrated that it simply does not understand the internet by indicating that they intend to regulate streaming video. I wonder what these geniuses plan on doing with porn streamed from Europe?"

This is a poor summary of the situation. It's clear from the article that the government's intention is the review regualtion, not necessarily (as the poster snidely suggests) to impose regulation on porn streamed from Europe. The outcome of such a review could reasonably be that material streamed from within Australia should meet certain guidelines. While this doesn't prevent trash coming from overseas sources, it does ensure that broadcasts where responsiibility lies within Australia meets certain standards. This is typically what governments seek to do, and would lead towards consistency with other broadcasting formats for shows which have a large, youthful viewership such as Big Brother.

About eight years ago the government did show naivity on internet regulation by passing measures that were unworkable and which were panned within the IT community and within sections of the Liberal party itself. However, the current minister has cleaned things up a lot. Her approach to internet regulation has been to encourage education of parents and availability of client-side filtering - which is exactly the approach that I'd expect most of the slashdot readership would endorse.

Notice that of all the players with something to say in this article the government is the most restrained - calling for a review but not going overboard with censorship demands. In fact, it has been the federal opposition in recent times which has called for ridiculous measures while the government has been realistic in its approach, even by the reasonable (but in earlier times typically conflicting) standards of Electronic Frontiers Australia. See http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/mandatoryblock ing.html

Slashdot editors - panning Australians for our bad internet regulation system may once have been fitting. However, it would be nice if you could review things a bit more carefully based on the evidence rather than knee-jerks to posts making grand claims about Australian policy. It's annoying to see my country being portrayed as stoneage based on bad evidence. This snide post is not a story and it shouldn't have been put through.

1) The US is not the world, so your laws can go hang.

Hosting porn sites in Australia has been banned since 2000 under the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999,

They have the same restrictions for web content providers as they do for broadcast television producers. More info here.

G'day mate:

It's called the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act of 1999. It prohibits "obscene and indecent" content on Australian-based web sites. IIRC web sites have to meet the same standards as television and radio.

More info here

Accoring to wiki:

[T]his law prohibits pornographic Web sites based in Australia, though due to the majority of pornographic Web sites having been hosted outside Australia, the law is unlikely to have much effect on Australians' ability to access Internet pornography.

If the interent was around during the cold war do you think the FBI would have censored information about local communist groups?

Secondly as for human rights I can honestly believe that every country out there has at one point been guilty of such things look at Guantanamo Bay or Australia's treatment of the aboriginal people in the 1960's under the "White Australia Policy".

Finally I would just like to say that even democratic, 'free-speech' nations have tried to pass laws to censor the internet. Attached is an outline of such efforts by Electronic Frontiers Australia

This guy has been mouthing off about this for some time. But unless he comes up with something new, he seems unlikely to sway his party. The anti-sedition laws have been rammed through, but they caused enough of a backbench backlash that I can't see Howard and co wanting to stir things up again. But please join Electronic Frontiers Australia and help us keep an eye on this kind of thing! Danny.

As an Australian IT professional, I'm well aware of the USA's tactics; it's political suicide for a foreign government to knock back a free trade agreement with such an august country as the US. So, the really nasty DMCA/IP laws get inserted into the country's laws as a predicate to signing the agreement.

It has already happened in Australia, and I believe it also occurred when the Singaporeans signed their FTA.

Now, I don't begrudge the USA for trying this; hey, each country is out for all it can get, right? What I'm dismayed about is the position these other countries are now in: forced to enact bad laws for marginal FTA returns on a population base that will be paying the cost long after the politicians who signed the agreement retire.

http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens1.html

cut-n-paste job for the lazy:

Church of Scientology Legal threats against this web page

Scientology have a well deserved reputation of being a very aggressive organisation, accepting no criticism of their organisation or of their dead creator, L Ron Hubbard. They are legendary on the Internet with their attacks on freedom of speech, with legal action on almost every cotenant to force critics to take down web sites.
Well, my humble offering is no exception. Scientology in Perth, Western Australia has started legal action to force me to remove this site. When it became obvious that I was not going to do so, they threatened my ISP with legal action, asking him to remove my site. They even went so far as to offer him immunity from the upcoming lawsuit.

This page will be updated as the situation progresses.

The Players.

Jeremy Malcolm

The lawyer for Scientology is a local man called Jeremy Malcolm. JM used to be on the board of an organisation called Electronic Fronters Australia . EFA is "is a non-profit national organisation formed to protect and promote the civil liberties of users and operators of computer based communications systems."
From his position of fighting for freedom of speech, he is now fighting to stifle it. But that's life. I suppose a man has to do what a man feels he has to do. You can visit Jeremy Malcolm's web sites at the following locations.

• iLaw - JM's online legal website
• JM's personal website

6.3.4 The relationship of these agencies with AUSTRAC may well prove crucial once encryption becomes more pervasive. Major subjects of investigation, whether they be narcotics suppliers or distributors, pornography distributors, money-launderers or terrorists, rely and will continue to rely on the banking system to provide value to their transactions. The 'money trail', provided by credit and smart-cards, not to ignore fly-buys, may well provide a continuously available hand-rail in a darkening investigative world.

The emphasis is mine.

Fly-buys is a large loyalty scheme in Australia. AUSTRAC are the spooks responsible for tracing money as it flows through the economy.

Basically, the government is well aware of the abilty of loyalty schemes to trace otherwise untraceable cash transactions, and they would rather the public didn't know about it (as proven by the bungled attempt at censorship).

Other country laws.. Looks like many of the countries have already realized or are in the way to realizing that censoring the net is going to be an impossible task.

That would be Electronic Frontier Australia.

<plug>
All Australians should join this organisation...hmm, stuff that. Everyone (Australian or not) should join this lovely organisation.
</plug>

Acording to the Electronic Frontiers Australia taping TV shows is not allowed as there is no "fair use". Though there is "fair dealing", which includes the right to copy for research or study, criticism or review, news reporting or legal advice and judicial proceedings.

"I'd like to note my complete support for the CBDTPA.

I understand that virtually nobody else has said anything positive about this Act. That's because virtually everybody who has contacted you to discuss the Act so far is American. I'm not American, and I'd like to congratulate you on this most excellent piece of legislation, which will do more for the European computer, software, and music industries than any amount of pork our own legislators could have given us.

This Act is wonderful. At a stroke, you're crippling your software industry, destroying your nascent open source infrastructure, putting all your unsigned bands and hopeful novelists back behind the counter at McDonald's, and giving your computer and electronics vendors a huge ball and chain to lug around.

You'll also have given a big hand to Hollywood and the music industry -- a $35Bn turnover sector -- and successfully trashed the electronics, software and hardware industries -- upstarts whose $600Bn turnover is of no account. In so doing, you will have helped advance the USA to the status Imperial Britain aspired to in 1902 -- that of has-been former superpower.

If you pass this act, I will be sure to express my gratitude for the resulting pay rises and improved employment opportunities -- in Scotland and the rest of the EU, and indeed the developed world -- in writing. Thank you, and good luck."

On the yes, donate side... The US government's policies on copyrights / DRM / protecting Hollywood do affect the rest of the world. Our congress is the elephant in the electronics shop. The EFF is trying to keep the elephant tranquilized-- i.e. minimize the damage it can cause. The EFF is often a first responder-- it tries to catch weird new tech policies before they grow out of control and become laws in the US (and then the rest of the world). So donate 97% of your 'Rights x Technologies' monies to your local groups. But then also donate 3% to the EFF to prevent the bad US policies from being yet another worry for your local group. Insurance.

unlike the USA with the BSA and MPAA and RIAA and other IP outfits where these gestapo like organisations control the free flow of information.
Guess what - they are coming to Australia too.

Nope, I'm a member of the EFA (Electronic Frontiers Australia) instead. I hope all the aussies reading slashdot have membership though... *poke*poke*

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) has today issued the following press release: http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/PR040212.html

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today expressed dismay about the intellectual property clauses of the recently announced Free Trade Agreement with the United States of America, saying they would leave average Australians at the mercy of legal action from multinational media companies, and represent a massive step backwards for Australian Intellectual Property law.

"The United States has one of the worst systems of intellectual property laws in the world." said EFA board member Dale Clapperton. "Their Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been widely condemned by civil liberties and users groups throughout the world, and now the Howard government has committed itself to implementing its worst, most insidious provisions."

US copyright terms have been extended multiple times at the behest of lobbyists, and now extend to 120 years from publication, a period which has no purpose but to protect the vested interests of large corporate copyright holders. The 50 years (from the death of the author) afforded by Australian law are ample, promote the growth and reuse of public domain material, supporting ongoing innovation and development both in the arts and business, and are in line with Australia's commitments under the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty.

"Nothing published in the United States of America since 1923 has ever come into the public domain, thanks to lobbying from the music and motion picture industries to repeatedly extend the term of copyright. The public domain has ceased to grow, and unless these continual senseless extensions are stopped, it will never grow again."

There is nothing positive for Australia in these clauses. No additional usage rights are granted to Australians or Australian companies, and these provisions are a blatant sell-out to the interests of large US-based media companies.

Additionally, "harmonisation" of Australian patent law with the United States risks the creation of "software patents" in Australia. These types of patents have been regularly abused in the United States by major software companies who use them to intimidate and suppress competition and innovation. Litigation over the alleged infringement of "software patents" has become a lucrative business model in the United States, and is a path that Australia would be ill-advised to follow.

"The Howard government intends to sell out the Intellectual Property rights of average Australians to billion-dollar music and motion picture companies in the United States, who can use these new enforcement powers to prosecute Australians for trivial infractions of copyright, that would be legal under American law.

Australian copyright law recognises only very limited 'fair dealing' rights, typically for the purposes of scholarly study or review. In contrast, Americans enjoy wide-ranging 'fair use' rights, which Australians do not, such as the right to record TV programs for viewing at a later time, or to copy a legally purchased Compact Disk onto an audio cassette. Unless very specific and limited exemptions apply, Australians who perform these acts are breaking the law.

"If the Howard government couples the draconian enforcement and prosecution provisions of the DMCA with the already unbalanced Australian copyright law, it will place every Australian at the mercy of a lawsuit for breach of copyright", Clapperton continued. "It will turn the Australian Internet industry into a litigation mill, as well-funded US media groups launch waves of prosecutions against Internet users and Internet Service Providers themselves."

It's a completely different case. The three people who got charged were apparently involved in blatent copyright violation, ie offering and hosting other peoples copyrighted music for download.

The mp3s4free.net case involves linking, not hosting and targets a completely different set of people.

The music industry estimates the pirate trio cost it up to $200 million in lost sales revenue

That's more than triple the Police's (almost certainly already inflated) estimate of $60m - at AUD30 per CD that's around 2,000,000 albums, and yet there were only 7,000,000 'hits' (and probably a lot less 'downloads'). Who's to say that any, let alone all, of those 'hits' would have converted to sales? Even if each were a download, at AUD3 per track (averaging 10 tracks per CD) I only count $21m - an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE less than the ARIA estimates and a THIRD of the police estimates! Who are they trying to kid?

It's also worth noting that the website contained CD collections (Pimpology, Blazin' Up, Spades and Club Ace) compiled by 'aspiring DJ' Tommy Le, in which case they weren't necessarily copying music for the sake of it (and certainly not for profit), as ARIA would have you believe, nor were they adopt[ing] nicknames to avoid detection, as asserted in the article.

I am going to go spend that money I might otherwise have spent on CDs on an Electronic Frontiers Australia Life Membership and I urge others to do the same - it's only AUD110, or AUD16.50 through 1 July next year. That's less than USD12 for international readers! (your money goes further down under)

The Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Australia (CAUBE.AU), has reviewed the criticisms of EFA, and found that this label is entirely unjustified. In particular:

• None of the three case scenarios offered by EFA as examples of situations in which non-spam would be banned are correct. In each case the conduct in question would be legal under the proposed law.
• The EFA analysis fails to reflect the flexible approach taken in the Bill which is designed to ensure that even if there are unexpected consequences, those consequences can be eliminated swiftly.
• The EFA approach gives more weight to the fringes of the legislation than to the core provisions - indeed not one of the criticisms relates to the core provisions.
• The feared outcomes pay insufficient regard to the background of the common law, including the law of consent, administrative law, and the common law as it relates to seach warrant powers, which render those feared outcomes not just unlikely, but unlawful.
• The criticisms of the policy based exceptions fail to acknowledge that the law is to be reviewed two years after the penalties come into effect, which will include reconsideration of those policy exceptions, and to recognise that most of the exempted groups have strong reasons not to spam.

While there is room for improvement, the Bill sets the right base standard - opt-in. It provides a framework in which almost all of the concerns that EFA has with the fringe areas can be fine-tuned by executive regulation. It is wrong to claim that the Bill is "not anti-spam". The Bill does ban spam. Not all spam, but the largest categories of spam. Its impact on non-bulk commercial email is minimal, and adequate measures have been included to deal with unforeseen consequences.

Although CAUBE.AU does not agree with all of the policy decisions made in drafting Spam Bill 2003, its variances are not such as to warrant the conclusion that it should not be supported.

Accordingly, CAUBE.AU continues to support the Spam Bill 2003 in its present form.

A full reply is available at http://www.caube.org.au/efa-reply.htm.

The Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email, Australia (CAUBE.AU), has reviewed the criticisms of EFA, and found that this label is entirely unjustified. In particular:

• None of the three case scenarios offered by EFA as examples of situations in which non-spam would be banned are correct. In each case the conduct in question would be legal under the proposed law.
• The EFA analysis fails to reflect the flexible approach taken in the Bill which is designed to ensure that even if there are unexpected consequences, those consequences can be eliminated swiftly.
• The EFA approach gives more weight to the fringes of the legislation than to the core provisions - indeed not one of the criticisms relates to the core provisions.
• The feared outcomes pay insufficient regard to the background of the common law, including the law of consent, administrative law, and the common law as it relates to seach warrant powers, which render those feared outcomes not just unlikely, but unlawful.
• The criticisms of the policy based exceptions fail to acknowledge that the law is to be reviewed two years after the penalties come into effect, which will include reconsideration of those policy exceptions, and to recognise that most of the exempted groups have strong reasons not to spam.

While there is room for improvement, the Bill sets the right base standard - opt-in. It provides a framework in which almost all of the concerns that EFA has with the fringe areas can be fine-tuned by executive regulation. It is wrong to claim that the Bill is "not anti-spam". The Bill does ban spam. Not all spam, but the largest categories of spam. Its impact on non-bulk commercial email is minimal, and adequate measures have been included to deal with unforeseen consequences.

Although CAUBE.AU does not agree with all of the policy decisions made in drafting Spam Bill 2003, its variances are not such as to warrant the conclusion that it should not be supported.

Accordingly, CAUBE.AU continues to support the Spam Bill 2003 in its present form.

A full reply is available at http://www.caube.org.au/efa-reply.htm.

If that is your gripe, how did you feel about the content laws for things being hosted in Australia (being managed by the ABA).
Not to mention Using internet for offensive and menacing purposes to be outlawed (and EFA's response).

It will take a lot more than this (and even this I am not convinced is a + rather than a -) to make me have any respect for Alston and his cronies.

EFF in Australia is actually called the EFA

No internet access isn't restricted - it is crap. Bandwidth just sucks in australia, though this has begun to slowly change.

"...whacked computer rules" - I'm not even sure what this one means... perhaps you mean how our federal police/intelligence agencies have finally been granted the same rights as the comparable american agencies???

Australia has EFA - but we don't neccesarily have to rely on volunteer organisations as we actually have a government commission (the ACCC) that is specifically to protect the rights of the citizens - except in this case... :) heh...

Don't get me wrong, we are in no way a truly "free" society, but show me one that is...

Q.

The Australian Government accidentally released an uncensored report into cryptography and other things (the Walsh Report). The uncensored version was withdrawn a few weeks after release, but by then people (such as the EFA) had taken copies.

Here is section 6.3.4 of the Walsh Report. It is in red, which means it was removed from th ecensored version.

6.3.4 The relationship of these agencies with AUSTRAC may well prove crucial once encryption becomes more pervasive. Major subjects of investigation, whether they be narcotics suppliers or distributors, pornography distributors, money-launderers or terrorists, rely and will continue to rely on the banking system to provide value to their transactions. The 'money trail', provided by credit and smart-cards, not to ignore fly-buys, may well provide a continuously available hand-rail in a darkening investigative world.

The Australian Government accidentally released an uncensored report into cryptography and other things (the Walsh Report). The uncensored version was withdrawn a few weeks after release, but by then people (such as the EFA) had taken copies.

Here is section 6.3.4 of the Walsh Report. It is in red, which means it was removed from th ecensored version.

6.3.4 The relationship of these agencies with AUSTRAC may well prove crucial once encryption becomes more pervasive. Major subjects of investigation, whether they be narcotics suppliers or distributors, pornography distributors, money-launderers or terrorists, rely and will continue to rely on the banking system to provide value to their transactions. The 'money trail', provided by credit and smart-cards, not to ignore fly-buys, may well provide a continuously available hand-rail in a darkening investigative world.

Electronic Frontiers Australia have been trying to get a list of sites from the authorities over here. While there isn't an all-encompassing list of sites that ISPs must block, there is a list of sites that have been reported to the authorities. If these sites are deemed sufficiently offensive by the same governmental body that issues classifications for movies, and the site falls under Australian jurisdiction, it will be issued a takedown notice.

So far the government has managed to weasel it's way out of complying with EFA's Freedom of Information requests, due to exemptions in the law. Whether the exemptions should protect the government in this case isn't an open and shut case though - in fact, the government is worried enough that they're currently pushing legislation that would explicitly put such information outside of the scope of the FOI Act.

The problem with keeping this information from the public is that there is no ability to properly review the process. Many in Australia are of the opinion that our content regulation regime is a farce.

More information at EFA

Oh, and Electronic Frontiers Australia has issued a Press Release about this..

Oh, and Electronic Frontiers Australia has issued a Press Release about this..

And I forgot to mention, all proceeds went to the EFA. (including the additional $AU 700, 1 condom and associated lubricant garnished by Rusty as he ran around with a big cardboard box!)

Electronic Frontiers Australia has just issued a media release on this topic.

Electronic Frontiers Australia has just issued a media release on this topic.

Check out Electronic Frontiers Australia, our equivalent to the EFF.

Join the EFA!! (Electoronic Frontiers Australia). At $22 AUD a year it's cheap at half the price. Better yet, $110 for a life membership.

Electronic Frontier Finland
Electronic Frontier Canada
Electronic Frontiers Australia
Electronic Frontier Ireland
Electronic Frontier Sverige
Electronisk Forpost Norge
Electronic Frontiers Italy

It never ceases to amaze me just how many dumb and stupid laws that politicians put in place. We've all had a laugh at the laws which prohibit beheading your wife in public on Fridays and other such nonsense, but what we don't realise is that that these laws are still being passed.

Look at Australia's internet censorship laws. Less than two years later, it was pointed out that they had come in to effect, but were totally unworkable and had never seriously been applied. This sounds to me like very much the same kind of law.

If people believe I'm wrong that these proposed laws, I'd like to know why you think it and how you think it could be implemented and enforced.

For a scholarly, but readable roundup of Australian Defamation Law and the Internet I'd recommend:

http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/defamation.htm l

fair comment (e.g. an expression of an honestly held opinion or a criticism on a subject matter of public interest)

More censorship humour.

Danny.

More censorship humour.

Danny.

You know what I just heard? ZDNet Australia has an interview with notorious Australian IT Minister Senator Richard Alston which could even be read as suggesting that he, like some others in the Australian government, has learned a little about his portfolio during his 7 years at the helm. He responds openly about his censorhip regime, lack of action against spam and his antipathy towards Electronic Frontiers Australia but refuses to get into details on cyberterrorism response and security expenditure.

Go read it!

If their business model is so dependent on you buying certified Xbox games then why don't they just make a contract that you have to sign when purchasing it? It could be for say a duration of 12 months during which time you can't modify the hardware, then after that time you can do what you want with it. Afterall it's your peice of hardware in the end. Although really, it looks as though they are running around like paranoid monkeys. Do we see Sony threatening not to sell Playstations in Australia?

Well if Microsoft holds even the slightest chance of changing the law, then I suggest anyone in Australia should go and tell their local Federal MP that they don't want this to happen. See How to Get Politicians' Attention and How to Visit a Politician for tips on dealing with politicians. Of course it has to be said that visiting your local MP in person is the most effective way of getting your point across.