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Tougher Copyright Laws for Australia
smee2 writes "The Age reports Tougher copyright laws linked to the Australia-US free trade agreement (FTA) have been passed by the Australian parliament, AAP reports.
The bill, which passed the Senate last night, will enable people other than copyright owners to force internet service providers to take down material allegedly infringing copyright."
that is the internet will not last forever. cherish it.
From the country that granted a patent on the wheel? Oh, and FP!
Join moola.com, play games to earn money.
Isn't Sharman Networks based in Australia? I wonder if this will affect Kazaa.
Am I missing something?
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
The article:
Tougher copyright laws passed
Canberra
December 8, 2004 - 9:30AM
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Tougher copyright laws linked to the Australia-US free trade agreement (FTA) have been passed by parliament, AAP reports.
The bill, which passed the Senate last night, will enable people other than copyright owners to force internet service providers to take down material allegedly infringing copyright.
The internet industry raised concerns in a brief inquiry held overnight that the changes could bog down the industry with automated copyright claims.
The bill also made minor and technical amendments to the Copyright Act and the FTA implementation laws to improve Australia's implementation of its copyright obligations.
The changes followed last-minute talks between Australia and the US to finalise the FTA which takes effect on January 1.
The FTA for the first time gave performers economic and moral rights in sound recordings.
A number of criminal offences were broadened to target copyright breaches for financial gain or commercial advantage and significant infringements on a commercial scale.
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New provisions were introduced in relation to the unauthorised receipt and use or distribution of encoded broadcasts.
And the term of protection for copyright material was extended by 20 years.
The Australian Greens and Democrats voted against the bill, saying it would impact on freedom of speech and media diversity on the internet.
Sam Varghese adds:
Internet Industry Association chief executive Peter Coroneos said the bill had passed after Trade Minister Mark Vaile had exchanged a letter with his Opposition counterpart Simon Crean, pledging to work with the industry in drafting regulations that would "take the sting out of the bill."
Asked whether the US would not object to such watering down, Coroneos said it was a case of treading another fine line. "We are meeting Mr Vaile tonight in Canberra to work on the regulations which would be used to soften the bill," he said.
He said the bill was likely to go to the executive council by the 16th.
Asked whether the Americans would not object to such "regulations", Coroneos said he had no comment about what the reaction would be on the US side.
He said the IIA had been working with the negotiators for the last 18 months and had reached agreement on suitable copyright provisions, acceptable to the Australian industry, in July.
Coroneos said the changes - introduced because of section 154 of the US Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act 2004 - which had the internet industry up in arms, was shown to him only last Thursday.
"It may look like a last-minute effort but it is not," he said.
Reading the article, it seems like the people in Canberra are like dogs, looking up to their masters and asking if they can do this, or that..
It's truly a sad day for all Australians
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
Asked whether the US would not object to such watering down, Coroneos said it was a case of treading another fine line. "We are meeting Mr Vaile tonight in Canberra to work on the regulations which would be used to soften the bill," he said.
Who cares if the US objects to laws in Australia? How is it any of the their business?
Rember this one?
Censoring The Net With A Hotmail Account
I think Australian ISP's will be very busy for the coming time..
it's creeping creeping. I hate to think how much of a police state this place will be in 10 years.
And the term of protection for copyright material was extended by 20 years. because 50 to 120 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries'_co pyright_length
will just not give you enough time!
(personel note: wiki is wrong right? it can not be THAT long!!!)
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot.
Dear Australia,
Stop following our example. IT IS NOT A GOOD ONE.
Your friend,
The U.S.
(I'm posting from Australia, it's a joke!)
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
... even highlighted the main issues. How to Kill a Country. A bit dramatic but the agreement undermines some crucial aspects of our sovereignty. The PM (Prime Minister) laughed off the IP issues as just "technical matters". Yeah right. Shafted a-fucking-gain.
Bitter and proud of it.
I'm in Singapore, which is also in a bilateral FTA with the USA. My concern is that the FTAs that are being pushed through are actually a blatant attempt to enforce american law in countries where they have no prior influence over. If you're looking for a governing body over the entire internet, there it is, America is becoming the Nazi that will police the cyberstate of the Internet(s!). Of course, living in the commie state that I do, you'll never hear any of these concerns voiced over the mass media channels, which are all but overflowing with praise for the government and their clever negotiating of this FTA. Fear.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Heh. If you were really Americanized, you would have spelled it Globalization.
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Capitalism does not kill people - people kill people.
Ahahaha.
dude, they already did that 5-6 years ago. It didn't work then, infact all it did was drive a few porn-site operators out of Australia and move their hosting to the US, where it was CHEAPER to host the data (by a reasonable margin, what's more). Just take Abby Winters as a good example (google it yourself). She was pissed that she had to stop paying an Australian company money to host her material, even tho it was more expensive, iirc.
The blacklisting that was supposed to accompany it was a complete joke, what's more, and has failed miserably, a grand total of about 20 sites got reported in the first year or two, and no-one's heard of it since.
Good to see that Australia doesn't have the parents television council or whatever that bunch of whackos they have in the US is making things 'safer' for Australians (yet, *knocks wood*)
ashridah
I don't get it - this is a Free Trade agreement - file sharing is the acme of free trading??!
> Indicators, they are your friends! >
Not only has this copyright bill gone through, they also just passed an Electronic Surveillance bill that "regulates the use of surveillance devices (data, optical, listening and tracking devices) by law enforcement agencies and.... also significantly widens the circumstances in which they can be used and the types that can be used." where is the government free space??
After the FTA was signed but before the enacting legislation, a bunch of sham "Public Consultations" were held. Lots of small businesses and individuals gave many good reasons why (especially) the IP related parts were very damaging to Australia and gave all the advantages to America.
End result: Nothing changed.
Thank you, Canberra, for selling me out yet again, you short sighted bastards!
The big deal was not the copyright enforcement provision, but:
"...the term of protection for copyright material was extended by 20 years"
and
"New provisions were introduced in relation to the unauthorised receipt and use or distribution of encoded broadcasts"
These will have a real impact on IP in Australia.
The Australian FTA is particularly bad for Australia (from a purely monetary American perspective, you should be glad the Australian government is such a ham-fisted negotiator), but I don't think it's particularly unique here. In fact, FTAs are bad news all round - and this is coming from a perspective of mostly being in favour of free trade. They force all sorts of stupid tracking costs so you can prove that you're not acting as a transshipment point for goods from countries not covered by the FTA, cause all sorts of distortions, and serve as a convenient political cover to force through all sorts of measures multinationals like but citizens aren't so keen on.
Frankly, I think the rest of the world should gang up on the United States at the next round of WTO negotiations and demand looser IP laws. Even if they don't get them it's a hell of a bargaining chip to get the US to play ball on a lot of other issues.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
to mention some of the existing doozies
l ia.law.html/
- identifying an inteligence agent
- refusing to co-operate (no such thing as a right to silence)
and don't forget The Crimes Act VIA 1914 (as amended)
A sample
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs3604/lib/Crime/Austra
In some parts the Crimes Act VIA relating to Commonwealth data the onus of proof is reversed and possession of data = guilt until therwise established by a court of law
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
Did they just say that someone can request a takedown for copyright material of they don't own?
As far as I know, it is technically impossible for anyone but the copyright holder to know if the copyright is being violated. Why? Copyrights don't have to be enforced. Most people that don't care too much about their specific copyrights just don't bother to enforce them unless there is blatant plagiarism.
Further, how would anyone but the copyright owner know if some agreement had already been made?
Please tell me I am just incredibly misinterpreting it (and, yes, I did RTFA) and they aren't just being mind-bogglingly stupid.
I've heard very little discussion about how we (people who believe copywright and patent law has tipped too far in the corporations' favor) can use these laws AGAINST the big guys.
An earlier post suggested overwhelming Aussie ISPs with inaccurate copyright-breach claims.
But how about taking these laws to their logical, unreasonable conclussions on the lawmakers' and coprorations' own turfs?
For example:
- Bring coypright violation claims against the websites of the Aussie parliamentarians / senators / corporations that supported the bill.
- Try to find ACTAUL copyright violations of these guys. Then tell ISPs to bring down these offending sites. But do it in a trickle of death. I.e., don't tell the site maintainers about all infringing content at once. Rather, tell the ISP about it once offence at a time, requiring a new take-down---fix-content---bring-up cycle for each offence.
- Develop our own submarine patent portfolio for use against corporations.
I think at best this could get new versions of the law up for consideration by lawmakers. Unfortunately, that just gives the special interests more of an opportunity to craft law to our disadvantage.
How do we actually get the lawmakers to TRY to craft law that's fair or even anti-copyright? Is there no way we can do it, since they ALWAYS ultimately follow the money?
Still no fair use clause in Australia. We did end up with the worst of both worlds.
What is likely to happen is that ISPs will simply bump up their prices to cover the cost of processing all those notices.
And amend their terms of service so that when they process and act on a fake takedown notice there is nothing the customer can do against them.
and now they are succeeding in spreading it to the rest of the world. Throughout history talented individuals created artistic movements. These movements are often based upon the foundation built by others. Artists copied the work of others and then changed it to suit their needs. As these ideas became popular they were copied yet again from others. How long until even this will be not allowed? Imagine if you will what would happen if the precepts that are taking over in the entertainment field were to be applied to science? Imagine what would have happened to the newspaper industry if the current laws had been on the book back when it was starting to take off?
I hope politicians in other countries aren't so ready to follow the US so blindly down the path to mediocrity. But it looks like it is too late for the Aussies.
One that takes all the good things from the different networks and makes them into the ultimate P2P app.
It should have:
1.complete open unencumbered protocol specs
2.Open Source reference implementation
3.Complete encryption of all files shared along with random files being stored in random locations (i.e. like Freenet has where its next to impossible for anyone to tell exactly what files a given person is actually sharing). It should be designed such that even the owner of the machine has no way to know who is downloading what from their machine.
4.Good search feature so you can find what you want easily (including an equivelent of the ed2k:// links so websites and stuff can link to files on this network)
5.communication features (ala IM/chat) that let you find and talk to other network users.
6.Encrypted network traffic. A great way to do this would be to encapsulate everything with SSH so that anyone in the middle only sees SSH requests. This makes it harder for service providers to shape or block it without harming all those who use SSH for its many many legitimate purposes such as CVS and remote access.
7.It should feature downloading from multiple sources if available (i.e. spread the load around)
8.It should feature a built-in program similar to peer-guardian and other such programs that can block IP address ranges owned by the copyright police (with the database being totally open for all to see as well as ways to add your own local entries if you want). Certainly this would be incorporated into the protocol specs and the reference implementation.
9.It should be deasigned to be totally non-relient on any one central server or servers.
and 10.It should be designed such that it does not require large system requirements (e.g. big CPU usage, large RAM usage, big disk space requirements etc) and so that it doesnt have undue bandwidth requirements (i.e. no more than current P2P apps require)
Because its Open Source (and Open Specifications too), there is no central target to go after like there is with kazza or napster or audiogalaxy.
Development of clients can happen in many countries and in many places making it impossible to stamp out. (plus, if its popular, it will be mirrored in plenty of places simply through that fact alone)
Because its encrypted and goes over SSH (or something else standard if SSH is not sutable), its difficult to block this without getting legitimate users of that service annoyed
Because it has the encryption and "files can be anywhere" features of Freenet its much harder for the copyright police to link files to machines/IP addresses (which makes figuring out who to sue harder) Also, this means that it would be possible to show (even in a court of law) that you didnt know that your file share contained copyrighted material, child porn, terrorist stuff, music not produced by the RIAA cartels or whatever else that the government who holds juristiction over the machine in question has decided to declare "illegal" this week.
Because it has IP blocking (like Peer-Guardian etc) its easier to find where the copyright police are scanning from and stop them from connecting to your machine
Will all people other than the copyright holders be able to do this? Will only the duly appointed representative of the copyright holder have any standing?
The problem with such an open ended definition is that the quote in the submission makes it sound like anyone can suddenly make ISPs do all sorts of things.
And to you Aussies, I feel for you. As a Canadian we frequently find that FTA with the Americans means "you must buy our stuff, but your cheaper made goods are unacceptable". It ends up feeling being a new open market to sell US goods without any reciprocation whatsoever. They're too busy passing laws to protect their own industries.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Next:
increasing usage of unbreakably anonymous/encrypted p2p mechanisms.
Then:
prohibitions on p2p, encryption, and "non-standard" ports & protocols.
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2004/11/emgo ne_with_the.html
erroneous slash sorry
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
They do it to the relatives houses, the teenage bomber I assume is in bits. Collective punishment was a war-crime last time I checked. I don't support EITHER side and if we all did that it would never have been more than a bar brawl between Arrafat and Sharron. The Iserali's are terrorizing all Palesinians because of the crimes of some AND they are a modern state. Yes there are thugs at the UN, they stand up and say "your with us or against us" and sell weapons to all sides. It makes me want to puke that zenophobes like you applaud the same behaviour that lead six million to the gas chambers.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You are right that globalization means Americanization for the time being, but the rest of your post is dead wrong.
American values become a part of other cultures because America's culture is held in high esteem. Freedom and democracy hold lots of weight in the eyes of foreigners. America does not have to force its ideals on people, they openly accept them. Take fast food chains in Europe, for example. I have spent a good amount of time in Europe, and everyone I meet says how much they hate McDonalds, but they go there anyway. You see, Europeans in particular love to hate America. They say how much they hate McDonalds as they jam a big mac (or Royal, as it is called there) down their throat.
The same holds true for the rest of the world. The more people despise American values, the more they become a part of their culture. Just do a little research instead of spouting off your anti-americanism. Almost all the leading figures on globalization agree on this: Globalization makes it incredibly easy for cultures to adapt pieces of other cultures into their own. America's culture is looked highly upon because of its freedom and openness. Therefore it is the one that is often taken from right now. In the future it may be a different culture.
In the mean time, go research globalization while you eat fast food, listen to crappy MTV pop, and curse America.