Slashdot Mirror
More Australian Insanity: Forwarding Mail Illegal (updated)
lpontiac writes: "People have been making noise about the new Australian copyright laws
making web caching and Playstation mod chips illegal ... and now, the
Australian attorney-general has come out and stated that the new laws
also make it illegal to forward email without the explicit (ie written)
permission of the person who wrote the email. (Just as surprising to me is that the article claims to know who Claire Swire is :)" Update: 03/04 11:22 PM by T :
kipling writes "Regarding the Australian e-mail copyright story, the
ABC news site
says that the Australian Attorney-General has dismissed these claims. Looks like another news ltd beatup." Update: 03/05 02:55 AM by T : And thanks to downunderrob, here is the AG's press release calling the idea "ridiculous."
It's always been impolite, or bad etiquette, to forward emails in full or in part.
I'd be tempted to say that it always has been illegal, due to the fact that the original author has copyright whether or not he/she explicitly says so. Any legal sharps out there conform or deny that?
However, will they make eating peas by shovelling them onto your fork illegal next?
THL
--
Keeping
Okay, so nobody in Australia can forward email without permission...there goes a lot of things like a tech-support rep forwarding a sticky question or problem from a customer to their second-tier people. Especially (heaven forbid!) if it includes a screenshot of the error message.
What's going to be targeted next? Blogging with embedded links or images? (I know, some people would say "big fscking deal", but to others, it IS a big fscking deal...think about it!) Web pages that generate email to their operators, like feedback forms or catalog requests?
IMHO the Australian government, with this one piece of legislature, has both insured that their country stays unnecessarily insular AND set a very dangerous precedent for other governments to look at.
Just my 2c (US) worth...donate the change to your sysadmin's Vegemite fund.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
I'm terrified to think of what form the US appropriation of all this legislation (rating systems, anti-mod, copyrighted forwarding) will take.
Sen. Tankerbell: "Well look at all of this handy dandy law making a goin' on Down Under. They've done all the writin' for me, and most of it's in Amurican!"
--HG--
"I ain't got no flyin' shoes."
Calling Democrats socialists has precisely the same semantic content as calling Republicans fascists.
sounds like you have a case of americanitis. for all you know that person is from ecuador. australia is a joke. the sooner you realize that the better.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
What the hell is going on down there in Australia? Since when was the attorney general in charge of drafting laws? What kind of a country is it where laws are broad or ambiguous enough that the attorney general could re-interpret them? It sounds to me like that country has a bad case of the government not being answerable to the people. When that happens its time to either reform it or overthrow it.
Before I was born my parents had the opportunity to move to Australia. I'm glad they didn't.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
More importantly: Is it illegal for you to forward my own email back to me when you have a complaint about it?
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
You think Australia doesn't already know what goes on in electronic communications?
Where did the first admission of the existence of Echelon come from? (Australia!)
They're in on it, along with the Kiwis, Brits, Canuks, and of course, the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the most evil of all privacy invading countries, the USA.
Just assume that all your electronic communications are public and you'll be fine.
I agree that this law is one of the stupidest laws ever passed here in this sun-burnt land, but you shouldn't for a second think that all Australians support or even approve of it. Don't let the ideas of a few ignorant people in power lead you to believe that our entire nation is full of such idiotic try-hards who fear technological change and progress as much as an (insert deadly Australian animal here).
And as for us being a nation that has banned guns, that is one law that i happen to support. Primary producers (ie farmers) are still allowed to own them, it's the semi-automatic firearms owned by the general public (rifles & handguns alike) that came under the microscope.
motivator_bobAThotmailDOTcom
Saving the children! Er.
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Who knows, maybe you'll have to sign a waiver and send it to your ISP as well as your recipient's, giving them permission to forward. Even if it is encrypted, it's still data. If I had an email that read "I eat cheese", and I fucked it around to get "eat I cheese", I'm still the author.
These rules apply in the US as well. The coopyright law is the same except now Oz law states that email is a "created work". In the US email is also a "created work" and has the same protection, its just not listed in the CFR. You could nail someone for copyright infringment for publishing your email in the US but the court could decide the publishing was "fair use". Same thing could happen in Aus as well. If I send email to the editors @ "the Age" (a local news paper), they can assume I intended for them to publish it and publish it under fair use.
This is not new, its just clearing up some confusion. Check out the legaleese sections of any book publishing site (like ora.com or lonely planet are two I know). They mention that they have the right to use email you send them in their books.
Transport of a message is not replicating work according to most countrie's copyright rules.
Coca Cola® is not a copyright -- it's a trademark. There's a huge difference. They can't prevent you from using their name except if you try to use that name on another product. Trademark exists to prevent people from creating new products with name clashes with yours, and is generally thought to be a good thing, since it prevents customer confusion. Of course, there's abuse of this form of intelectual property (especially by WIPO's domain name dispute policy).
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
(c) 2001 any direct quotes, links, assumptions, thoughts, fantasies, misconstruction of this post is punishable by up to five years in jail down under
oops
- *Normality Is The Root of All Evil*
The sex scandal example is pretty silly. Firstly the guy sent out the email himself (what a braggart). If people want to get the word out, they could treat the whole thing like a copyrighted work and still quote enormous portions of the e-mail, say people can send their annotated version around the world, and you still get the same problem.
Secondly, how is this law going to be enforced? We could a) have the government read all e-mails and check to see all the notices (as if we love Carnivore enough as is) or b) have somebody sue the person. I think most people will end up ignoring the law (and also not sue their relatives/friends if they are that close).
Thirdly, copyright law is designed to protect the works of people so they can earn money from it/get credited with the original ideas. It simply states that revenue will be made from each copy or acknowledgement is given. You can't make too many copies of stuff because it theoretically takes away from the benefits given to the author. Of course, how does forwarding one's e-mail give anything (unless its some spammer). Frankly, this just seems like part of the paranoia surrounding cases like Napster. If anything, it should be a privacy law, not copyright law.
If the government is so concerned, they should enact a law that says your implied permission to do anything with an e-mail is given by simply recieving the e-mail. It should be made a crime for violating a condition set forth in the e-mail. People don't need to see more legal phrases and contracts everywhere.
1) of course it's a joke
2) I'm not in or from the USA
---
Not true.
A person always implicitly holds a copyright to something that they create as soon as they create it.
Finally, bad spellers and the grammatically incorrect are protected by law. No longer need they fear being mocked and ridiculed forever in a never-ending flood of forwarded e-mails they have destroyed so eloquently. I applaud Australia for taking a stand for the dignity of the CmdrTacos of the world.
My guess is that the joke industry has been crushed by the Internet and what to stop all the massive joke emails. So I guess forwarding, printing, or telling a joke in public is now illegal without the express written permission of the joke author. The stupid thing is I wouldn't be suprised if the DMCA can be interpreted the same way. Discliamer: The contents of this posting are copyrighted by me and can not be reproduced in part or in whole without express written permission. Fair use rights may apply but you will have to talk to an attorney about that. G'day
Don't read this sig cause it's not worth it.
make it legal to forward any email you receive unless the person includes something in their email like 'i dont want you forwarding this, jake.' or something in your signature that says 'do not forward' blah
What about those of us on mailing lists that automatically forward email from you to many other memebers? What about those mailing lists that archive the emails and put them up on a website for quick and easy reference?
Sheesh.
Feel that power? That's mah MOUSING FINGER
I wish i could have just one thought like them, then i wouldn't have to think so much and i could just be sure.
If you people would just do as you're told, everything would be OK.
What's going on down there? Is it Mad Cow Disease?
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Q2 Yes, of course they if you wrote "Do not forward this death threat to the police or any law enforcement authority or in any way allow another person to forward this death threat to the police or other law enforcement body" at the end of the death threat.
Of course you will go to jail for your death threat and they will be subject to the full force of you suing them in a civil court for infringing your coyright and I suspect the Judge will give you damages of ohhh 15c at least.
People seem to think there is some jail involved here. Its not even a criminal law. Except for a couple of sections dealing with false declarations the law only allows the copyright holder to sue you for your action. At best they will get loss of profits and if you are a big abuser some punitive damages but for email, whats the loss. There is no cause of action.
Understand. NO ONE WILL GO TO JAIL FOR FORWARDING EMAIL.
If you people would just do as you're told, everything would be OK.
Better than that, you can report the bastards that send you the forwards and have them arrested!
Nope, just a bunch of clueless, out-of-touch politicians that will probably be voted out of office at this year's federal election....
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Damn, it's getting to the stage where it's embarassing to own up to being an Aussie on IRC...
Maybe I should just say I'm from Austria instead...
I've written to the Attorney General telling him he's an idiot who is damaging Australia's international IT reputation and severely threatening the rights of individual Internet users. If you're an Australian, why don't you do likewise?
Damn the Australian government! Because of them I will be reduced to a humo[u]rless bankrupt geek!
-Z
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
The one thing that I keep going back to, the one thing that continually puzzles me about all of this is that - given Australia is a Democracy with elected officials - how people can stand for this, how this never seems to be an issue that the general populace takes to heart, and how an ostensibly large number of people support such laws. When an item like this is presented in Slashdot, be it foolish patents, draconian copyright protections, or outrageous MS practices, it is presented as though the subject is stupefyingly logic-defying. The tone of these topics are always "well, DUH!", and yet ordinary people really don't get it.
:)
I mean 'don't get it' in the literal sense, I assume. They are actually uninformed as to the essence of the laws that get passed. It was like the time I learned that if I get stopped without proof of vehicle insurance in California, there is a $1000 fine, even if you have proof but are a little disorganized and left it at home.
The unmitigated arrogance of a government beholden to greedy corporations! In this case, a corrupt official, a 'wolf watching the hen-house' allowed the laws to be passed. Chuck Quackenbush, the wolf, has since been railroaded out of office, but did the law revert back to what it was? In no sense of the word.
Essentially, the problem boils down to Campaign Finance Reform. We have been talking about that for ten years now, but Congressmen maintain that there are Freedom of Speech issues that would be violated. How arrogant of them!
I'm sorry, we were talking about Australia, weren't we?
Well, it seems that politicians are even more brazen in that country. They therefore hold the light to the map to show us where we are headed if we cannot find some way for the People to keep their government in check. And they are not that far ahead of any other of the governments, they are just a little more brazen.
It took a few hundred years, but they have finally 'loopholed' and 'lawyerized' the Constitution into irrelevance. God help us all.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
nice theory, except that
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
We probably have the biggest proportion of unenforced laws in the world. Many of our laws ar "vague". Many are "poorly expressed". Many are obsolete (I think I'm still supposed to have a man with a red flag run in front of my car to make sure that people with horses know I am coming).
You think this is bad? You're wrong. It leaves a lot of room for a judge to be "fair", and if he isn't then there is always a way to appeal. I'd reckon that there is more "justice" done than you would believe.
Not that there are not incredible injustices sometimes, but you get those everywhere. At least our legal system doesn't execute people.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
According to this law, every email that gets sent is copyrighted by default, regardless of whether there's a copyright notice on it. So, technically... whoever's sending out those lame jokes and chain-letters really has a lot of people by the balls. I don't think you'll see a whole lot of lawsuits over this week's Survivor humor, though.
How many people actually enjoy recieving forwards about how you too can save an Afghanistan boy with 2 asses, or how Jesus really does love you, or a 5 meg video attachment of an Asian man being raped by a rabid panda. Hmm, well, scratch that last one. Still, I could imagine the fun I could have seeing various aquaintances being jailed for being the forward-happy jackasses they are. But then again, I'm just a jerk.
"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear." --Herbert Agar
If I send a spamers email address off to abuse@bozo's_isp and the spamer contacts the prosecutor's office, then I'll get a peice of paper with the spamers address on it.
I think I can live with that risk. After all if I can quantitize the abuse to enough real $$$ then they can be coutnter sued.
Personaly I think this is just one more way that Australia is tring to take over the title of most litigious country on earth.
This is unbelieveably sad and completely backward. I could possibly see an argument for being able to copyright an email message -- for a subscription-based newsletter for instance -- but come on people, optimize for the friggin' common case! If the sender doesn't want you to forward the message they should have to say so explicitly.
Complaining about spam requires forwarding the entire message with complete headers. I haven't had a chance to read the bill yet - it was introduced and went through the committees in 1999 - but it looks like this bill may make spam complaints illegal.
What I'd like to know is, what were EFA doing at the time? The bill was titled "Copyright Ammendment (Digital Agenda) Bill 1999", yet EFA is not listed in the submissions to the committee inquiry. A bill like that screams out as being right down EFA's alley, and this interaction, which seems obscure to most people, would be blindingly obvious to EFA. It looks like they seriously dropped the ball as far as keeping in touch with what the Parliament was doing here.
We have a population of 20 million. The sustainable carrying capacity of the country is six million and diminishing.
We have damn good reasons for not accepting any one at ALL.
For a while it looked like Australia might become the "peacful home" of international terrorists. Pardon me if we take our responsibilities seriously.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
And in related news, showing (paper) birthday cards to your friends and family after you recieve them is ruled an offense, as well as telling anyone about an email you recieved, or reading your email in a public place, or... or....
Looks like people have been jumping off the deepend.
And btw I think Australia is a great place to live.
If you get a chance to metamoderate, use it.
I don't think so. Linus owns the copyright on linux because he explcitly includes the copyright in the tarball. So unless someone prefaces a message to you with a copyright notice, you can forward away.
The Australian goverment is obviously trolling us with this law. There can be no other explanation.
FBI reveals Carnivore to be hoax, announces "YHBT"
But in this case what the Telegraph is describing is precisely the application of traditional law. It is giving email the exact same treatment that paper mail gets under current copyright law, and has gotten for a very long time without kicking up any particular controversy.
You write something, you own the copyright. Others may copy only by fair use or if you give them permission. That's how it is with paper.
Apparently the aussie government is os the opinion that the web will only be safe and secure for copyrighted works when it is completely useless.
I guess I'd better remove all australian addresses from my aliases file, eh?
Since when do Socalists actually care about which way the popular vote went? Bush infact lost that aspect of the contest. Other historical examples don't alter this. Whining about pedantic legal points won't change this or create consensus where there clearly was none.
It was an election worthy of the son of the invisible man...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Australia starts acting like China and reading their citizen's emails, checking for 'inappropriate material'?
Australia starts packet sniffing?
Australia requires all traffic to go through a central server farm, so they can control everything going in and coming out?
Australia filters web sites?
Scary stuff. I'm a developer who was considering moving to Australia soon. This is enough to make sure that I don't move there until they stop passing Draconian laws.
from the feature creep department...
>All we have to do is change the name on the button
>from "Foward" to "Quote"
>and then nobody is breaking any laws.
Does the Australian government know they're quickly making their country into a laughingstock?
Given how future prosperity will depend on technology to an increasing extent, why are they trying to ensure the emigration of all their geeks?
Can any Australians here offer insight on the political climate that has created this shortsightedness? Why are they doing this?
I think a lot of us has read some of the little half-funny half-scary short stories, mostly speculative bits about what the future could be like. We probably all remember the guy that let his poor girlfriend sneak a peak at his textbooks, even though it was likely to cost him jail time (but didn't). We recently got to read speculation here on the future as affected by the Napster decision.
I have to say -- this whole situation reads like that. If back in 1998, someone wrote one of these, and said, "...and so people were jailed for forwarding jokes without permission...", it would have seemed funny. Now, it is a mournful day in a world where legislators make laws seemingly without regard to the lives of the people they serve.
The Register on 2 March 2001
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
The only problem I would see would be the degree of required consent. What about messages on public forums, for instance? IANA(A)L but I'd say that the author of a news article implicitly agrees that his article will be copied and distributed on news servers all over the world; for a message on a WWW-forum it could be more troublesome but one could expect it to be replicated on caches. Only there could there be abusive restrictions due to a too-stringent interpretation of copyright.
Unless you want to challenge current copyright laws themselves; and there is reason to IMO, but that's another story.
and I hope he throws someone in jail for 6 years for the heinous crime of forwarding an email. Then maybe we'll get stupid laws like this one thrown out.
Come on. No substantial copyright exists in any work of less than 200 words, because that's the limit for an excerpt under fair use.
A colleague forwarded to me yesterday an email from his wife in which she derided overclockers in general and her husband in particular. Now not only is he in trouble for shagging their PC, he's violated her copyright, too.
--
--
E_NOSIG
Judge: You've been charged with illegally forwarding an email.
Defendant: But I had express written permission.
Judge: Let's see this written permission.
Defendant: I can't show it to you. I didn't get permission to forward it on.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
There is a simple way to get around this rule. That is, one only has to attach a notice in your sig, allowing anyone to forward your message. For example:
-----------
Joe H. Schmoe
joe@schmoe.com
*I hereby give you written permission to forward this message*
Something as simple as that would work, even though I'm not so sure how well it would hold up in court.
An email, while being writted down, is not in a permanend form. ei) It is not expected that the person who sent the email will keep a copy for more than a few weeks (until the sent mail is emptied out). It is also not expected that the person receiving the email will keep it for very long either. Possibly only long enough to read it and delete it. Despite not being a lawyer, I would have to say that email doesn't, and shouldn't, fall under the list of works that can, by default, be protected by copyright.
However, it is entirely possible that I may want to email you something that I want to retain the copyright on. In this case, I should have to explicitly state, at the top of the email, much like on a book, that the email is copyright blah blah blah.
Further more, copyright law states that there are cases where you can force a copyright owner to allow you to redistribute a work. If the work is not made available to the public on reasonable terms, you can request (from the copyright board or something) to be able to redistribute that work. They will set any royalties or licensing fees that you will have to pay the owner of the copyright.
Note: I am a Canadian, speaking about US law in response to a story on Australian law. My only knowledge of US copyright law is two copyright-for-the-layman type books that I have read in my spare time. Please feel free to correct any of my "facts"
Note 2: You can freely reproduce this work blah blah blah. :)
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
My school's AUP says that I can't forward emails which contain personal expressions or thoughts or something like that. The idea is that you can't embarrasses someone by forwarding the details of their last romantic encounter to someone or a list when you get pissed off at them. I think its perfectly reasonable and good to have.
SSL Certificate
Yet again the Australian government proves that foot in mouth disease has indeed reached our shores, yet somehow it seems to have only infected Canberra for some reason :)
Other innovative tech law failures by Sen. Alston:
- The modifications to Australia's censorship code that formally extends the Australian copyright system to the Internet, placing it in such company as Iran and China.
- The digital TV laws that make datacasting illegal for certain genres of production (eg, drama) (!) and which formalise the oligopoly of current TV stations.
- This copyright debacle.
The greatest problem through all of this though is that the MPs did not use the system before legislating for it. I believe the opposition and minor parties have no excuse here either as they did not vote against it.USA was a penal colony too.
At least I won't get shot by the Australian "prisoners", but I will by the American "prisoners" and bible-bashers.
I'm not sure about this, but I had thought that copyright violation was mostly handled in civil proceedings. This law is interesting in that it would put some serious criminal penalties (five years or $60,000) behind it.
I guess now if you write an email virus, and you get caught, you can bring down everyone who ran the attachment for breaching your copyright. So you will be able to pay off all the damages you have done with all the damages you collect from the thousands of victims out there.
Now that is a sure way to cause some chaos
"Me and my girl named bimbo . . . limbo . . . spam" - Captain Beefheart.
this is not the first weird law all weapons in australlia have been confiscated soon they will be a communist country
Wow, I didn't realize that the confiscation of guns (which only happened with military-grade weapons) had anything to do with the proletariat taking over the means of production. Thanks for pointing this out to me.
P.S. I'm being sarcastic.
The USA produces 50% of the world's pollution. They won't accept this or change their ways. They are contributing to the inevitable death of millions (if not billions) of non-Americans. I think nuclear wipeout of the USA is in order. I think we can distribute them in any variety of ways...
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
The ABC site says that the minister has dimissed these claims.
Let this discussion on the merits of australian law die.
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
We shouldn't get too upset about this - they are just making explicit what has always beenn the case. Email is, and always has been, I believe copyright in all countries that have signed up to the Berne Convention.
To have a copy is not to have the copyright. All the E-mail you write is copyrighted. However, E-mail is not, unless previously agreed, secret. So you can certainly report on what E-mail you are sent, and reveal what it says. You can even quote parts of it to demonstrate. Normal fair use applies.
Somebody who sues over an ordinary message might well get no damages, because the message has no commercial value, but if you want to stay strictly in the law, you should ask first.
BTW I am not a lawyer but do teach the use of the internet.
That's not the situation at all.
Caching and forwarding don't represent republishing but different steps in the distribution chains. For the analogy to really conform to the situation, governments would have to have banned the redelivery of mail or the subsequent relay of telegraph messages.
They clearly didn't do such things then, so they shouldn't be doing them now.
Computing complicates the situation dramatically because copying is required to do ANYTHING useful with data or programs. You have to copy in order to use, or to simply deliver, and to reuse.
The situation is not nearly as simple as you paint it. It is this sort of simplisitic approach to the problem that is causing problems like this and others (like decss).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This could put some SERIOUS teeth into the GPL in Australia. (it just gets really hard to discuss it.)
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Actually, attorney-general Daryl Williams has dismissed reports that sharing e-mails has been banned by law. According to an ABC news report, he says for distribution of a personal e-mail to be classed as a breach of the new law, a court would have to find the contents were an original literary work.
He says it would be difficult for most e-mails to be regarded as original enough to have a copyright placed on them.
So now we have two criteria to check our email against. Originality and literary quality. What I want to know is how does the following compare:
-- Dear Bill,
-- Hows the family? We're OK. The job's giving
-- me the sh**ts. My boss is a complete pr*ck.
-- Can't wait to stick it up him. Anyway patience
-- is a virtue. See you at Dave's on the weekend.
-- Cheers,
-- Mike.
Considering its originality, I'm sure there are a zillion other emails with similar wording. Some of the persons and facts might be different (your boss may be an a**hole). Regarding literary quality? Well, Shakespeare it ain't. Does this mean its non-copyrightable?
Moderators, please mod this up - this is not the usual bash-everything-blamed-in-the-article.
That isn't true at all. Correspondence has never been protected by copyright laws. Email isn't the digital equivalent of Thoreau's Walden. It shouldn't be protected by law when "real" correspondence isn't. If the email does contain something more than standard communcative material, then it should be protected. But to do so to all email is a joke.
Pax Digitalia
So what's the deal with a mailing list? Will mailing list software need to email back each poster and ask if it's alright to forward the email to all the people subscribed to the list? I hope there is implicit permission when you send an email to a mailing list.
This is absolutely hilarious. If I receive a snail-mail letter, I am free to do whatever I wish with it. The author cannot use copyright to prevent me from putting that letter in my neighbor's mailbox, throwing it out, or using it as toilet paper. The problem is that legislators are exploiting the fact that there is no tangible manifestation of an e-mail to create rediculous laws that are far more restrictive than anything that governs the use of physical property, like a letter.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Guy sitting at computer... In the background you hear "You've Got Mail!"... close up of computer screen, at least 150 messages in his Inbox. He hits the forward button, selects all 50 people in his address book, and hits the send button. Immediately, a kangaroo with boxing gloves appears and knocks the living daylights out of the guy.
Word appears at bottom: "SPAM"
Foster's beer bottle shown: "BEEEAAAH!"
"Foster's. Austrailian for BEEEAAAH!"
What about the archiving of things like LUG mailing lists?
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
These blokes have gone full blommin' mad!
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
Now the bad would be internal business e-mail(maybe not so bad). I've seen e-mails sent from Jane, forwarded to John, and the stuck in my e -mail bin. Jane must now give permission to John. John has to give permission to someone else, and then I need to get permission if I'm going to forward that e-mail.
Should businesses be responsible for getting permission from the originator of the e-mail? Will this be something added to employee's contracts? "I hereby give my life to you, and you may forward my e-mails by default".
Here's another thought, Jane sends e-mail to John, John gets permission and sends it to me. Do I need to get permission from both Jane & John to forward it on, or only John's permission?
Talk about opening a big ole can of worms.
musicians, artists, writers, film makers
i.e. fuck the rest of you. Unless you're a member of the "approved" copyright agency, don't even think about us protecting your content.
Maybe thats just the way I see it. . . I could be wrong.
Since when did governments stop caring about ordinary people's interests?
Guess those underage hooker/drug parties the copyright goons throw for the politicians must really be working.
Blah!
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Now if only MS was located in Australia they wouldnt have had any antitrust problems. The DOJ wouldnt have been able to forward email onto the Judge Jackson.
Does it go on forever?
I just have two things to say about that. The first is of course that you shouldn't generalize us Aussies like that. You can't actually believe that we are all like that because of what you may have seen. :P )
Thats not important though, of course. You're entitled to believe whatever you want (Even if if it is wrong
The main thing is to understand is that (IMHO) its not that Aussies are wierd, its just that the country as a whole is not as, well, technologically savvy? (Not sure how to phrase that exactly) which means that when the government tries to bring in overly restrictive (and plain dumb) laws or regulations, there are not that many people who would complain to a large extent.
This at least seems to be the case to me. I've only just been able to introduce my parents to email (and the kind people who got hold of her email address introduced her to spam and porn for me) and they, being able to vote and voice their opinions louder than I (being only 17) have no opinion in this laws, and somewhat assume that anything the government introduces to make the net safer (also read: hinder advancement) is for the good of the nation, and willl heartily believe that.
Enough from me now, I'm generalzing too much as well.
The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Why yes, all my base are belong to you.
How did you guess?
But it seems to me that you are against all forms of copyright? Is that true? In that case, why?
However, if we say that this
is not irony from you, I must say I agree. The day we lose the copyright, is the first step down the road that leads to even more restrictions in our freedoms. What is next? Freedom of speech?Copyright is good for all. I realize that I am in minority to think like this, but unless *someone* wants to abolish the right we have to our own opinions as well, I will stick to mine.
Will work for bandwidth
Actually, we can't. JFK won the election by 100,000 votes. George Jr. lost by 500,000 votes. Not even James Baker could say that the situations are equivalent.
But by all means, continue.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
"G'day! You're under 'rest for forwardin' me mate's joke!"
I have decided to forward all of my email to the Australian Attorney General. Anyone else up for it?
Boy I thought things were bad when they took away your guns. Now they won't even let you play games or annoy people in your address book. lol
The thing I like most about this job is all the rocket scientists who bang their mice on their desks shouting 'It Broke!
I think there is a little more hope than that. But strangely I agree with you on some points, and I am from the political ideology you claim is doing this.
First thing. Corporations, much as you may love to villify them (ala John Katz) are not all really as evil as you portray. And even though some are relatively evil, most corporations have other corporations directly fighting them. Example: While walking through Best Buy yesterday I could walk by CD's (The RIAA oligarchy), MP3 players (companies that could care less about the RIAA), piles and piles of burnable CD ROM (companies thay may care about the RIAA but will sell these anyway). In almost every competitive realm there are at least two companies fighting it out for consumersl (even now in software with Linux vs. Windows).
Government is the real threat, there is only one of those, and it is being bought and sold by the unscruplous every day. The socialists (read Democrats) want to tell you what to do, how to do it and now want to redistribute you wealth so badly their babling incoherently about it. The right to its discredit wants to protect you from all the bad stuff out there (thus ironically telling you what to do and how to do it as well).
Government is the real one we need to watch out for. The above post is right about one thing. We will need to take back the goverment some day, somehow.
Boy I thought things were bad when they took away your guns. Now they won't even let you play games or annoy the people in your address book with virus hoaxes. lol
The thing I like most about this job is all the rocket scientists who bang their mice on their desks shouting 'It Broke!
I was just curious...why did they outlaw email forwarding but not gossip and rumors? Isn't someone going around telling other people a joke i told them just as bad as forwarding it on email?
I know what I will do, I won't tell anyone any more jokes so they can't possibly tell them to anyone else! Or worse yet, so they can't forward them to anyone else.
The anti-salmon
Everyone! Listen up, it's time to plant 1x1 transparent GIFs into your e-mails, to track all the people infringing on your copyright! Don't let all that precious time you spent making your e-mail be wasted! It's time to fight back! Time to prosecute those who STEAL YOUR E-MAIL!
They would be just as well off to shut off all internet access in Australia. That way, no one would be tempted to break any of these foolish laws.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Could it be that emails will be sifted to search for copyright hotwords like Coca Cola? Anyone using Coca Cola will automatically have a royalty charge applied to their account?
:)
Here's a funny scenario. Say there is an e-mail scam going on. Someone is sending e-mails that promise a good thing, and after reading it, you fear that some foolish people are going to fall for it and lose their life savings. So you send out a warning email, using the body of the text to help people recognize it, as well as demonstrate the hows and whys of it being a scam.
Theoretically YOU could be fined for doing a public service.
On a lighter note... what if I emailed something, lost the original, and wanted to send it off to some other people. I go to a friend and ask them to bring it up in their account, and then I email it off to other people... do I have to get written signed permission from myself?
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
Actually, how do you think the Reformation (which as we know, changed history)started? It took years for a Bible to be written, while a printing press dramatically cut down print time...so Bibles, tracts could be written much quicker, (but still slow compared to our times) As for the insane laws, there are ways to circumvent them enough and we can tie them up in courts for years... This is why we should have elected Gore the Bore, Georgy Jr will just allow the coporations and the government take over the Net which was meant for us all to be used.
Slashdot Hypocrisy at work?
As an IT professional that had once considered moving to Australia, I can assure you that with this kind of mad hatter legislation will prevent me from ever moving there. I hope the Australian gov't enjoys living in the Infomation Dark Ages. I can't believe they would put their citizens in PRISON for forwarding an email. I thought this was a joke, but I guess this is just another example of the paranoid behaviour of a gov't afraid of FREE SPEECH. U.S.A. and DMCA beware. Limiting free speech is wrong.
I believe that everyone has the right to quote, for "fair use".
I also know, that the mail, when reached it's recipient, is the property of that recipient.
Can't you use and quote text from your own property?
I can not imagine that Australia really would have so different laws to many other countries in this matter?
Will work for bandwidth
Simply forward the offending attachment to abuse@isp, and the prosecutor's office will be contacting you shortly about *your* case.
The illegality stems from breaching the copyright held by the person who originally wrote the e-mail.
So does this pertain to someone who has included a copyright clause in their email or will the Australian government just conclude on their own the thoughts of the people whose email is in question.
"It's quite possible that the forwarding of an e-mail could be a technical infringement of copyright," Mr Williams' legal adviser told The Sunday Telegraph.
Again, this seems to be a broad law created possibly in hopes of deterring people from forwarding an email and delves into perhaps placing a link on a website. The people of Australia should do something against their politicias who seem to want to take away their right to free speech. Suppose your a reporter and have some very good information regarding an article, will you get sued or thrown in jail for quoting something, or linking to a site to prove a point, or make a statement?
The new measures cover material which already has copyright protection -- such as excerpts from books or song lyrics -- as well as personal messages.
I guess I can no longer email my friends down under with any links or quotes to something I've seen or read, or heard, since they can face time for looking at it should they innocently reply back with the copy of the message I originally sent them.
This means a simple message about office gossip, holiday plans or a new romance carries personal copyright and the recipient has no right to forward it without permission.
Bill Clinton would have liked this law
Internet Industry Association executive director Peter Coroneos said forwarding e-mail had probably always involved a technical breach of copyright, adding: "It's a matter of whether the authors themselves are likely to be concerned.
He urged people sending e-mail to spell out whether they gave permission for the content to be forwarded to others. Well, someone shed some light on this, it is of a concern of the author not government in this matter, however a law is a law is a law.
(c) 2001 ANY DIRECT QUOTES, LINKS, ASSUMPTIONS, THOUGHTS, FANTASIES, MISCONTRUCTION OF THIS POST IS PUNISHABLE BY UP TO FIVE YEARS IN JAIL DOWN UNDER
down under
By saying that the non digital part of the world is "the real world", you're implying that the digital part of the world is not real. That expresses the view that digital and more traditional medias are completely different. Which is the view you say you want to fight!
Free your mind!
At least Aussies don't elect fascists
Why is everyone is upset about the government sniffing their email when they can just use GPG? I would love to see the internet come to a full stop as the Aussies enlist the help of distributed.net for each email to verify compliance.
This message was encrypted with rot-26 cryptography.
Gotta agree with you on that one. Comparitive to many many countries in the world the democrats are actually fairly right wing. Australias oposition Labor government and Brit's labour covernment are way to the left of the American Democrats, but even despite both these countries haveing labor in for up to 12+ years at a time on and off, neither country is exactly living under the hammer and sickle(spelling?).
When the democrats introduce a policy of "Collectivising property away from burgoise interests for emancipation blahblah blah..." then I'll believe that they are socialist. Remember people these words actually have real meanings outside of terms of abuse for anyone who does not agree with you. And for that matter Americans have a damn wierd usage for the term Liberal. It tends to denote "conservative" over here.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Hello.
hundreds and hundreds of people have already read this piece of email, and now YOU are the lucky one. Send this mail to 5 friends, and you'll have luck for a year! But if you break the chain...you could have bad luck for years and years. Just look at what happened to John. He failed to send this note to 5 friends. the next day he was eaten by a gang of ravenous rabid weasels! or what happened to Mary: she DID send this mail to 5 friends. 3 days later she won a million in the lottery. 367 days later though, we sued her for copyright infringement...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Wow, the Atty. Gen.'s Office really covered there arse fast on that one.
Thats some spindoctoring worthy of the Clinton Administration.
Seriously though, did anyone not see this happening in Aus.? There electronic communication laws have been getting more and more strict for years. The place has long been on its way to a digital police state. No offense to my aussy friends, but I think that your country is trying to avoid what is happening here in the States. The only problem is that they are heavy handing it.
I think that the Gov. down there is panicking to control something it can barely comprehend. I see this (not supprisingly) as a real bad thing. That kind of rapid clamp down ALWAYS causes a backlash reaction of somekind in the people (or nation) it affects. Only now that the ball is in motion, I doubt that the AU Gov. will be able to stop it. Speaking purely philsophicly, There's a storm acomin', and theres nothing to do now but sit back and watch.
Good luck you guys (and gals), I think your gonna need it.
RA7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
What is 'law' and what is 'enforced' are two entirely different things.
For what it is worth the budget granted to the Australian Federal Police to manage this (and spam) was a total of $A200,000. How far do you think this is going to stretch?
IANAL Two other things. (1) Selective law enforcement is illegal here. They can't "pick and choose" their cases. (2) A law that is unenforced in greater than X% of cases (I think X = 50) or when greater than X% of the population disobey it, becomes legally unenforceable and invalid.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
You cannot claim copyright on evidence of a crime.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
The problem is that the Dem's are essentially the same as the Repub's. They have slightly different hang ups, but they both basically want to control everything and everyone. And after this last election I'm not too pleased with the official Green party either.
If they weren't so pro-corporation I'd probably be Libertarian, but as it is I'm just libertarian. And this despite knowing how powerless it renders me. I just can't feel that supporting any of those (you fill in)'s is better than nothing.
If I were to start a party I'd call it the minimalist party, and the basic platform would be that any law must be correctly understandable by at least 60% of a large sample of 8th grade kids. I also want to limit the total number of laws, to, say, 5000.
And how about this: There can be no more bits of information in the laws of the country than there are in the human genome. Is that too many or too few? And don't forget those 8th graders! They have to understand each piece of it.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Yeah right as if they would. Some of you will and do believe everything you see and hear. I personally dont want some jerk off company using what ever i have said, done, pissed in,wrote etc being used to help make them X amount more millions seeing as they can already here use my medical records for commerical gain. Just look at packer and his database of info they have gathered to sell to individuals, your on it unless you state other wise, do you really want to add to that wealth and not receive a penny for what is rightfully yours.....I know i don't. It will get that way that you will nearly have to copyright yourself. I also hate haveing someone dictate to me what i can and can't do
Those of you over in the land down under, should write a mail rule that forwards every peice of email you get to the attorney general's office...
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
Don't try because it's next to impossible. Polititians should not be trying to pass untenable laws. It makes them look foolish and the laws complicate an already confusing legal system (at least in America).
In the end, I never existed.
My God, could it be so simple? The obvious answer to these new and rediculous IP laws is to think ahead of time about the ramifications (beating the PR guys to their 'news' releases), publish bogus news articles about it, then when the outraged public starts knocking on the boardroom doors, they've got no corporate mantra or pre-recorded soundbites to work from! All they can do is deny everything! Muahahahaha!
I don't need to copy/forward an email to complain about spam. And i *can* copy the headers, since they are not copyrighted by the author. I think copying the Subject falls under fair use. Also i can forward the message to the author himself. So i think there's still some options left to complain about spam.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Since some of these Beasties are intended for sending copies of your mail elsewhere (when you forward something that's explicitly allowed to forward and add some comments) the law should come down pretty hard on those.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
The reason for this email law is so copyrighted works won't be reproduced without permission. Now, I can still imagine problems with trying abuse@*.* from (now-copyrighted) spam, but those lame jokes and chain-letters that everyone forwards never have copyright notices. Letters don't, mailing list messages don't. Don't piss yourselves over this. Besides, Austrailia was formed as a penal colony, do you really think anyone there will give a shit what the law says? ;-)
The truth about Michael
What if you are forwarding spam to an abuse e-mail address? Could the spammer sic the legal attack dogs on you? Or what if you got one of those "i love you" e-mails with a worm in it, and it forwarded e-mails without your knowledge? Could the virus creator sue everyone who got the worm and unwittingly passed it to other people?!?? More braindead "ideas" from politicians.
I won a legal case where I was not paid for completed work, where I had included a copyright TO THE COMPANY (not me) on the basis that since thay had not paid my fees, the copyright was in question and I was requesting a that they cease and desist form marketing it and that their customers cease and desist from using it until the copyright issue was resolved. Fastest I ever got paid... CEO met me at my bank with a cash cheque and got *immediate* clearance on the cheque.
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
What's so surprising about that? There've only been a ton of articles mentioning the situation so far. This your first time to read a newspaper or something?
Cheers,
from a country that has banned guns.
No email, no "unclean" sites, no web radio, no TV, no music. None of it. Where's the market?
:)
For the server vendors to make firewalls/filters/sniffers for all links coming into Australia. The government would pro'lly buy MILLION$ worth of equipment and run Win2k on it to sniff every packet going into/coming out of the country.
Easily circumventable.
But who's to say there won't be a Net Gestapo to go around to all the companies and universities to snoop around the server room and grab a copy of the logs? (Forgive me for any ignorance of any existing Australian laws, but the government's ignorance must rank above mine.)
Thus sprach DrQu+xum.
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
This is one more reason to limit copy right to selling and unfair competition practices not sharing. If you do not want to have an email shared then do not send it, talk to the person on the phone or in person. But there is the danger of the person will tell everyone what you said. Imagine that gossip being a problem. Next they will try to make it a copyright violation to repeat what people say without their permission after all it is already considered plagiarism if you don't say where a statement comes from, we are almost there. This is all going down hill very fast, we as a society may have to hit rock bottom with IP laws before the world finally sees what we all have lost and start the very long and hard road to trying to get it back.
And I get LARTed.
I then sue the John Does who LARTed me, subpoena my ISP for their names, and make a killing.
Who says you can't MAKE MONEY FAST?
--
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delenda est Windoze
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Look at
http://whoisclaireswire.terrashare.com/> this link
Here's the link: http://whoisclaireswire.terrashare.com/readtheemai l.html
It looks like the article Slashdot linked to was misinformed. The e-mail doesn't talk about Brad's sexual prowess at all...
Regards,
There are times when you'd rather not have your email forwarded. That's what copyright is all about and in most cases it should deter others from re-distributing private correspondence.
whatiscopyright
is a good overview too.So who want to inform the australian government...
Regards,
That is the real problem. There was a time, not so long ago (er, ca 1992 or 3) when information was rapidly being freed and it could not be stopped so it roamed the world unfettered and unencumbered. Of course, that was when only the technologically savvy could access this information and the great unwashed masses couldn't. So there wasn't a problem because it was obscure to those in power: they didn't get it.
.NET - to act as broker between each digital transaction).
Now, ten years later, when they Do understand the intrinsic power of information, they feel they must control the flow and broker each and every transaction between all people on the net (that is, in fact, MS's plan -
This is an informational war between the people of the world and basically corporations of the world (governments playing puppet to the corporate whim). The instrument of control is the Law. The legislators and lawyers are going to find it extremely difficult to control informational flow, but we are seeing - real time! every day something new! - the fruits of their labors: horrible and unenforcable laws that basically make each and every citizen a criminal. Once everyone is a criminal, then all of their liberties are endangered, and they must skulk around, fearful of being caught.
The only difference that I can see between Winston Smith's sad little grey world and this one is that people don't seem to have the zeal to rat out their neighbors, no one is wearing a red sash. Wait, correct that, I forgot about the model for the (forget what Orwell called them) guys who turn in their neighbors: the Religious Right and Christian Conservatives here in America. Already drug laws have turned half a nation into criminals.
Now another large chunk will be criminalized - sorry, has been criminalized. Napster-users, anyone who ever burned a disk containing MS Office and gave it to a friend. Basically, an entire nation of criminals, at risk and fearful of exposure. This serves the regime well.
The reason there will not be reform is that legislators are no longer servants of the people, if they ever were. No, the people are not vested in their country. Not in England where by some strange brainwashing technique (a la 1984) they Act like the Parliament is their friend, not in America where we know the story but admit powerlessness and the inability to organize except to continue to oppress Ourselves (MADD, African_American Rights Moevments, et al), and apparently not in Australia, which probably follows a British model.
The only power a people are left with is the power to revolt. And at least in America, those in power are preparing for that eventuality, when they get to crush (a la the WTO riot in Seattle) the small Goldstein (Stallman?) rebellion once and for all. The maser would be a really good weapon for that, wouldn't it? SWAT teams with masers and stun guns and tear gas... oh my!
But, my God! So many criminals, criminalized by such an oppressive regime!
Believe me, you don't want to see a Bastille Day, where the streets ran red with the blood of the aristocracy. And so ordinary people who have not girded their loins and prepared for the moment will lose their nerve at the critical hour.
But those who have been planning this moment know what to do. They are seizing the day right now, and will continue to do it forever. Recall that 1984 wasn't about crushing a rebellion forever. It was about warring with people day after day.
er, sorry so long, but that's how I feel.
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
I'm suspecting a bad batch of Fosters hit the unsuspecting voter population. You know I envision a new commercial. A picture of Pauline hanging on some drunk guy's arm as they leave the bar and then emblazoned on the screen we see "Wolf Date" then cut to a Fosters can. "Fosters. Australian for beer."
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
PLEASE USE THESE THINGEES... Y'know like..:P and uhhhh this one :0 ... oohh, and this one %^. And how about this one.. "}.
You're all commies. Every last one of you /.ers.
I'm getting Heston on the phone.
I can't forward around that chain mail that my 12-18 year old brothers, sisters, and compatriots keep sending me. That sucks.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
But then again, who will be only too happy to enforce all of this? Constable Microsoft, that's who.
I swear, if I ever get a chance, I'll have the DeCSS source code engraved on a metal breastplate and shield and become the anti-MPAA knight.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
2. Why does this law exist especially for e-mail and not for generic mail, both e- and snail-? I'm sick and tired of legislation that assumes as soon as you do something on the internet that it needs more strict rules than it did in it's older low-tech form. Why discriminate against e-mail? If this rule doesn't exist for paper mail, it shouldn't exist for e-mail. Conversely, if it exists for paper mail already, then it should already be illegal for e-mail without needed new legislation.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Here's the link at the ninemsn web site:s p)
New law won't punish forwarding e-mails (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/sci_tech/story_9424.a
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Let me guess, linking to goatse.cx is illegal too?
Do we need to include authorization for Australian users to copy or forward our messages from ./ ?
karma capped
it appears it only applies to "copyrighted" works (I really with slashdot would've included this in their comment above). But still, the potential for abuse by spammers is high, and who says someone couldn't nessecarly copyright the code in a worm? The very idea of the law itself is stupid. If the big heads don't want their material to be forwarded DON'T SEND THE DAMN THINGS IN THE FIRST PLACE! -- Why can't fellow countrymen get along instead of jailing eachother?
that this will at least prevent all that annoying chain mail?
i usually end my mass emails to my friends with "forward this to whoever i left off, and plz remind me of their email addys." but that's usually like, happy new year, or i'm taking this class next semester, or yo we're meeting on saturday night, etc. if i sent one email to one guy and it was a direct communication to someone, it's kinda rude for that person to just forward it to anyone else, ne? it's like cutting and pasting the contents of one instant messaging conversation into another... at least ask before you do it. i know when someone's doing it to me cause i usually get a "lol" from a stranger and stuff.
the weird thing is: it shouldn't be illegal, it should just be a matter of courtesy. if all personal communication is copyrighted, then isn't forwarding it "fair use" or does that not apply?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Oh, thanks! You reminded me of what would be a wonderful sig if I wasn't limited to 120 chars...
"Describe the difference between the Democratic and Republican Party in four words or less." - Dick Gregory's Political Primer
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
This is an informational war between the people of the world and basically corporations of the world (governments playing puppet to the corporate whim). The instrument of control is the Law. The legislators and lawyers are going to find it extremely difficult to control informational flow, but we are seeing - real time! every day something new! - the fruits of their labors: horrible and unenforcable laws that basically make each and every citizen a criminal. Once everyone is a criminal, then all of their liberties are endangered, and they must skulk around, fearful of being caught.
The only difference that I can see between Winston Smith's sad little grey world and this one is that people don't seem to have the zeal to rat out their neighbors, no one is wearing a red sash. Wait, correct that, I forgot about the model for the (forget what Orwell called them) guys who turn in their neighbors: the Religious Right and Christian Conservatives here in America. Already drug laws have turned half a nation into criminals.
Now another large chunk will be criminalized - sorry, has been criminalized. Napster-users, anyone who ever burned a disk containing MS Office and gave it to a friend. Basically, an entire nation of criminals, at risk and fearful of exposure. This serves the regime well.
The reason there will not be reform is that legislators are no longer servants of the people, if they ever were. No, the people are not vested in their country. Not in England where by some strange brainwashing technique (a la 1984) they Act like the Parliament is their friend, not in America where we know the story but admit powerlessness and the inability to organize except to continue to oppress Ourselves (MADD, African_American Rights Moevments, et al), and apparently not in Australia, which probably follows a British model.
[fx:tongue firmly in cheek]
Well, actually, for Australians, it's not that much of a change. After all, we're a nation of criminals, aren't we?
[removes tongue, and sarcasm]
That said, the current Australian government has a fairly strong history of removing the freedoms of the Australian people. For a start, this is the government which declared that material which would get greater than an "M" classification (ie not considered as being viewable by people under 15 years) is not legal to place on a web page hosted in this country. It's the government which brought in some lovely laws (for the Olympics - really!) which give the prime minister the power to call out the Army in times of civil turmoil. These laws haven't been removed. It's the government which has attempted (and succeeded) in removing a single or lesbian woman's entitlement to use IVF services to conceive a child - as well as the rights of heterosexual defacto couples. The loss of the privilege to forward on email is just a drop in the bucket by comparison.
What's really frightening, from an Australian point of view, is that by changing the government of the day, there is *no* guarantee that we'll stop this gradual erosion of our civil liberties. The Labor party is right alongside the Liberal/National coalition in this matter (after all, if they weren't, we'd have heard a lot more controversy about these laws). The Democrats have stopped trying to keep the bastards honest, and have decided to try becoming bigger bastards instead. One Nation would be a bigger threat to civil liberties than any other party aside from possibly the Greens (especially the more rabid ones who think that anything "natural" is more sacred than anything human). At this rate, the Natural Law Party (yogic flying, transcendental meditation, and world peace) aren't just sounding reasonable, they're sounding like a sensible alterntive. Now *that* is scary.
Meg Thornton (who isn't looking forward to the federal election this year)
--
Perkin's Postulate: Online tech support is designed to provide everything short of actual help.
It's mad politician disease - even more contagious than foot-in-mouth disease.
One thing the article left out, is that it is now also illegal to forward phone calls..
Do we really think that the Austrailian government is out to protects my copyright when I forward gossip to my sister? Or do we think they are trying to cut down on chain letters and spam?
You Americans are obsessed by guns. At least we don't have massacres in high schools. Sorry, but I see gun control as common sense and nothing to do with civil liberties.
Why must the courts and legislatures of our world continue to think of computers as things foreign to traditional law? Why must they continue to make computer laws and decisions that would be considered unreasonable when applied to the real world? Computers are just another tool. With the printing press, there wasn't as much legal change. The monarchies and aristocracies of Europe feared it, but they could always have their troops smash a printing press. Computers and internets make the oligarchies and plutocracies of today shudder, though, because they can't do that. They have little control. They want control so they continue to pass insane laws.
They will not succeed.
Pax Digitalia
Ok, I can see the reasoning behind this, and it's quite insightful.
However, do we really need a law that requires people to get explicit consent to forward an email, instead of just having the copyright holder sue whoever forwarded an email when appropriate.
As you said, people need to use common sense, but this law is just rediculous
AC comments get piped to
It seems like its all about copyright issues, and not about spam and Internet bandwidth issues at all.
As long as the author of the original intends his email to be circulated (which often is the case), this really shouldn't bother anyone.
I have copyright on this text! So I will not permit that any server will forward it to any browser or that any proxy server will cache it! ;-)
Sorry but that law is just plain stupid:
An estimated five million or more e-mails are forwarded each day around the nation.
Attorney-General Daryl Williams QC has warned Australians that they could be breaking the law, if they continue to forward e-mails from today.
That's what I call lawbraking.
Go warn all those people, and you software people, recompile your groupware for sale there, so it dont have that forward button!!
geez
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Actually there may be one good result of this. Maybe people will be a little more careful about opening attachments for fear of being arrested for forwarding VB viruses without "permission" from the virus writers.
Or maybe the nice virus writers will tell us in the e-mail that it is OK to forward it on.
Sending anything that one claims as "copyrighted" to people one doesn't know and not providing a valid return address would be sufficient grounds to argue that copyright does not apply. The recipient is denied an opportunity to return the e-mail to the sender.
If a spammer decided to try the copyright defense, it can easily be demonstrated under Australian law that they accessed someone else's computer without authorisation, which is an offence under the Crimes Act.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
hitting the forward button by accident. :o
Damn, I feel dumber just having to ask such ridiculous questions. Yet they are valid if Digital Agenda Act is enforced to the letter of the law.
The ruling says that it's illegal to forward email because you're reproducing it without the author's express written permission.
What about SMTP relay? Each SMTP server along the way reproduces a copy of your email. Since you don't always know which SMTP servers it's going through, how can you give them express permission? You can't. Thus, email is illegal in Australia.
The obvious answer to this is that, when you send email, permission to copy it is implicitly given.
Here, nations compete head-to-head to impose the most ridiculous pro-censorship/corporate laws on their citizens, without causing a revolt!
And oh! Looks like Australia takes the lead! Yep - the fans are eagerly awaiting the US's response. :)
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
and we thought they were fools for giving a $1000 dollars for each forward, they were just testing BETA.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
Let's not forget that Australia is just a penal colony. Why should prisoners have the same rights as a free man? They were rightly disarmed a few year ago, and now their lines of communication are being cut to make them more isolated and easier to control. Nothing but good management on the Prime Warden's part.
I say that the things a man does to be sent to Botany Bay relieve society of any duty to respect his freedom.
Sure, you may say that a significant percentage of prisoners are merely descendants of criminals, but as anyone who's paid attention to his lessons on eugenics in high-school science class knows that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And as for those odd souls who removed themselves to that place voluntarily, it only shows their preference for associating with criminal defectives; the clearest sign of actually being one.
You don't pry into whether our local wardens prefer thumbscrews or the lash, so why bother yourself about how Australians can talk to each other?
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to all of your friends.
Couldn't we do without that?
--
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
No, the spammer is participating in an illegal act. Pasing on (Forwarding) evidence of this would be closer to mandatory than forbidden.
>Or what if you got one of those "i love you" e-mails with a worm in it, and it forwarded e-mails without your knowledge?
I doubt the courts would take it seriously, but it might be better if they did. They would probably ban the idiot from using the Internet for three months (just as you can lose your driver's licence for doing something stupid on the road).
>Could the virus creator sue everyone who got the worm and unwittingly passed it to other people?!?? More braindead "ideas" from politicians.
No. Just like the spamer, the virus creator is breaking the law ("illegal intrusion").
Zero Sum (don't amount to much). [root@localhost]
how this law is workable (like most of the recent stupidity when it comes to Internet regulation)
how any attourney general would consider allowing a case like this to even reach the courts unless something was fairly obviously being done with bad intentions
if i dont mark my work with an internationally accepted copyright symbol, how is that work copyright. I have heard that all original work is considered copyright, but if this is so, why does everything still have (C) on it.
if the reproduction of unmarked (ie, no (C)) works was illegal, then email is not the least of our concerns. One could argue that fashion choice is a form of expression, and thus television crews which may inadvertantly show bystanders may be illegally infringing on their copyrights. and thats just too silly to be law josh
:wq ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
If anyone cares to remember the Chinese government passed a law stating "Pornographic images of any kind are illegal and punishable", this is a variation of sorts from another country.
With all the attacks on the Internet coming from all different places (hacks on Microsoft, script kiddies defacements, script kiddie DoS attacks), officials are not technologically savvy enough to differentiate any underlying factors when assessing laws to create to assess the bad stuff from the good, hence the UK's law making hacking a crime.
By creating such vague laws officials may feel these methods do not describe any specifics, but an entire slew of incidents which can occur which would make it easier to prosecute crimes. Sure it sounds scary, but the prospect of someone taking you to court because you forward a mail in my opinion is slim.
We have some pretty odd laws over here in the United States which can fall into that category as is seen with some of these companies fighting over patents, and copyright laws, some are as outrageous and nondescript as possible, certainly untested in courts, so there easier to use and reflect upon when making charges against a criminal.
My two cents on this issue, my two hot chicks posing on my site.
Please note that under the Berne Convention, an international agreement to which almost all nations (including the United States) are signatory, all written works are under copyright automatically, even when no explicit copyright is mentioned.
--
AC
I'd actually like to take issue with your sig, not your message itself:
We don't need no stinkin' sigs.
Yea, sure, Australia's IP laws are getting loonier every month it seems. But insofar as this law threatens our personal freedom as citizens of the 'net, why not just twiddle your sig a bit as a hack and be done with it:
"The original author hereby disclaims any and all authorship rights to, and releases into the public domain any copy of this message reaching a computer in the Commonwealth of Australia, for the purposes of the Digital Agenda Act and/or any other legislation enacted therein.
// zyqqh
I hardly think that the government is going to kick down your door because you are forwarding emails in violation of this new law. How could they possibly know anyway? Is someone going to turn you in? The only way they could possibly know if you are forwarding email illegally is if they are monitoring your email, which they cannot do.
Cops have more important things to worry about, like murderers, rapists, burglars, and eating donuts. I don't think this law is going to matter in the long run. At least I hope not...
I can see it now:
Tonight, on Australia's Most Wanted, Daniel Thomas AKA "The Mad 4-W0rd3r" is wanted on over 49 thousand counts of illegal mail forwarding...
Now, any 'communication' constitutes an original work for the purposes of copyright protection. Get over it.
I agree, discerning a 'communication' from an 'original, copywritten work' is rather difficult.
Read that again and I think you'll see the problem. Determining whether the author would want something forwarded would ostensibly involve either explicit consent on each email, or some sort of mind reading. The problem here is not the few lawsuits that will spring up, but simply the massive legal exposure for corporations and individuals which has been instantaneously created by this law. It's a case of law not imitating life. I would hate to see the contortions corporations are going to go through regarding their employees' email over the next few months (assuming somebody doesn't wake up and vaporize this thing.)
Now, a good example of law meeting reality would have been to declare some sort of explicit granting of rights whenever you send out an email. Perhaps forwarders could be required to leave the original sender's name in the message body. Any law that miraculously turns a common, accepted activity into a crime is going to cause a lot of trouble.
What is the big deal?
I think it is something that the technology should have incorporated anyway ==
Imagine the message as being sent with one extra header line:
X-ForwardingOK Yes/True
I don't doubt that such a header is not already in use by some back yard mailer.
This way I get a little more control in what you do with my message. Ofcourse, there is nothing to stop you from copy and pasting, or from-scratch typing a copy of my message, but the mail client may refuse to auto-forward it (unless you specify that the field should be ignored.)
Marques Johansson
--
All men are great
before declaring war
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
I have just added this to my signature for all outgoing business mail:
"Permission is granted under the Copyright Act 1968 (as amended to 4 March 2001) to forward this messages to other recipients within your company. This waiver is required because forwarding email without the owner's written permission is now illegal under the Copyright Act."
This avoids any problems if I accidentally leave off a vital recipient (which happens all the time), alerts other companies to the problem, and acts as a mild protest.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Those people who write emails have worked HARD and they deserve to be compensated for their efforts!
If you forward those emails you are a THIEF and a CRIMINAL, no different than if you went into a Border's and raped the cashier. How would you like if some gave away all your work for free? Communist!
It's about time the government cracked down on those freeloaders. If you think forwarding emails should be free, well let's see you write your own emails and give them away! If every one forwarded emails, no one would write new emails because there'd be no incentive! How would you like that! Commie!
Err, wait a minute, what was the discussion about again?
Don't trust what you read in a Murdoch-owned Sunday tabloid! The story is a beat-up and the Attorney General has issued a statement saying it's false. Forwarding email was probably a technical breach of copyright already and I don't think this law changed anything. That's probably true for the US as well as Australia. Even if it were covered under copyright law, it's not like the government is going to go around enforcing it. It would up to the copyright holder to sue. Good luck to them - I don't think any judge would rule in their favour!
And what happens to all the viruses?
- The waffle man
You're an arrogant, ignorant fool. You should take a good look in the mirror some time. Do you really think the rest of the world is full of universal admiration for the US? Yes, I have met smart Americans, but I've also come across appalling pig-headed ignorance Have you ever even been to Australia? There are a lot of smart Aussies still in Australia. Sure, Australia, like other small countries, has a problem with brain drain. That has more to do with things like taxes and salaries than anything else. If you read discussions on Australian news sites, you'll find that many Australians disagree with such things as the new net censorship laws. We live in a democracy and we'll have our opportunity to change these things at the next election, if not before.
"Please forward this to as many people as possible"
I mean, it's not chain mail if it doesn't tell you to forward it, right?
-Psi
Max, in America, it's customary to drive on the right.
Before this whole Australian DCMA thing started, I had always thought that the Aussies were all like Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan. I think I liked that much better.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
The Attorney General has issued a press release refuting the claims in The Sunday Telegraph. Here is a quote from the release: "Contrary to alarmist media reports, sharing e-mail is not banned by law. Amendments to the Copyright Act that came into effect today do not outlaw the practice of forwarding personal e-mails to other people. That would be ridiculous."
Perhaps the government in Australia is just fulfilling the public's wishes? That Crocodile Hunter guy is a real shady character ya know...
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Forwarding e-mails today can be mainly attributed to teenage girls and others who believe the e-mails that appeal to one's sense of well-doing. For example, if you heard that if you simply send an e-mail, and you can save a person's life because they have a fatal form of a disease, and 7 cents will be donated by the American Cancer Society to cure this FATAL disease, then of course you'll do it, right?
/.'er first poster) are probably the ones who are perpetuating this and saying "hey guys, look at this forward I made and how popular it is!)
However, it's sad how so many people believe these schemes. Forwards first started out with the "forward to get a good sex life," and then evolved to "save a life, forward this," and next to "protect your kidneys from being stolen!" and finally, the endless numbers of virus hoaxes that will wipe out your hard drive simply by reading the e-mail.
Deception is obviously the easiest way to claim fame. Some really bored nerd (probably a
While most forwards are merely annoying, they unneccessarily waste bandwidth and time. Until the word gets out in the mass media, forwards will continue to be a caveat of e-mail. Except for the forwards that are real, forwards will be just like death, taxes, spam, and the need to upgrade.
Email is routinely forged these days, mostly in the form of SPAM. So now you can pin this crime on anyone at all. 5 years in jail, $60,000 fine. I suggest an air strike against Australia is in order, I think we can reach them some B2s and land in Guam...