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Fair Use Review in Australia

Posted by timothy on from the fair-enough dept.

Jaka writes "The Australian Attorney-General's Department is conducting a review on exceptions to copyright law. Currently Australia allows 4 specific 'fair dealing' exceptions (research or study; criticism or review; reporting of news; and professional advice given by a legal practitioner, patent attorney, or trade marks attorney - it's technically illegal here to convert songs from CD to MP3, or to record a TV show unless it's a live broadcast). They have published a request for public submissions (.pdf or .doc) on whether to expand this list, or adopt an open-ended 'fair use' policy similar to that used in the US and allow the courts to decide if any particular use of copyrighted material should be excepted from copyright law. As we're getting our own version of the DMCA thanks to the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, if something isn't done to broaden copyright exceptions we'll end up with even more draconian copyright restrictions than the US."

7 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Australia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You guys are still all criminals anyways right? fp

    1. Re:Australia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Additionally, a little known fact is that we are where Dorothy ends up after the twister picks up her house. It's nice and colourful here, and the munchkins are always very friendly.

    2. Re:Australia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well that is because your chick with the full frontal was probably hot.
      While Janet is a shriveled up 50+ year old hag. That was eye ball peelingly scary.

      So, I am taking a taxi from the Melbourne airport.
      The taxi driver calls back to me, "Where you from, mate?"
      "The States, California," I reply
      "Mmm, mmm. Well you're a better man than me. I could never live there."
      "Why?"
      "Too many dickheads."
      So we sit in silence for a while. Me looking out the window, ignoring the drive like I usually do.
      Then he pipes up with, "Well, I guess we got a lot of dickheads here, too."
      After some more thought he breaks the silence with" But I reckon you've got more of them over there."

      Yeah, he was a philosopher that one.

    3. Re:Australia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      "The taxi driver calls back to me..."

      What the fuck were you doing in the back seat?

  2. US by Dr_Banzai · · Score: 4, Funny

    First Canada, and now Australia. When will the US stop trying to push its draconian laws such as the DMCA on other countries?

  3. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, LEAVE THE PLANET by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    People like you complain all day but do nothing to get away from Planet United States.

  4. Re:*Cough* *cough* *splutter* *splutter* by notAyank · · Score: 2, Funny

    As an Australian, let me explain my thoughts about the FTA and it's IP scariness into language you Americans might understand: "You can have my iPod when you pry it from my cold dead hands."