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Fair Use Review in Australia
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."
Australia is trying to come to (the digital) age with its Copyright Act. Today the Attorney-General's department released a call for comments of an issues paper on the standing and possible changes of copyright exceptions: Fair Use and Copyright Exceptions [Word / PDF]. Currently Australians are not allowed to do platform shifting (e.g. ripping a CD to a MP3 player) and may only do very limited time shifting (e.g. recording television programs). Where fair use (US) and the private use exception (EU) may allow these acts, Australia does not know a specific exception for private use.
The Attorney-General said that "Many Australians believe quite reasonably they should be able to record a television program or format-shift music from their own CD to an iPod or MP3 player without infringing copyright law." [press release] The issues paper provides four possible changes to the current "fair dealing" provision and is open to others:
1. consolidate the fair dealing exceptions in a single open-ended provision (would require judicial interpretation)
2. retain the current fair dealing provisions and add an open-ended fair use exception (flexible but uncertainty about scope)
3. retain current fair dealing exceptions and add further specific exceptions (e.g. time & format shifting)
4. retain current fair dealing exceptions and add a statutory license that permits private copying of copyright material (possible problems with licensing scheme and DRMs v. private use)
The issues paper gives a nice insight in Australian copyright law's fair dealing provision, while it tries to provide the basics of other countries, especially the US. It does a fair enough job at that, though its analysis can be quite shallow (for example on the EUCD, which it refers to as the Information Society Directive). It does address the DRM v. fair use issue, which is a central part of the problems the Australian government seeks to solve. I don't see an effective solution in the proposed changes. But then there is no immediate (legislative) solution for it in the US/EU either. Looks like Australia has some catching up to do, before it solves that issue for us all.
I sent in a complaint to the senate inquiry about the US-AU-FTA, and they did nothing (except send me some nice looking books on their brainless decision). Why should I think they will change anything if I say something now?
I doubt they'd except it, unless you had proof, such as signed letter from educational institution or employer.
Anonymous Coward
IMHO there's nothing wrong if the creator of the work can set whatever license he wants - including (at his option) insane prices and unbreakable DRM.
:-/ If you look him up, turn the speakers/headphones waaay down before the page finishes loading.
Fine, but their right to tell me what to do with their work ends as soon as I hand over the cash. Then it's my copy, and they can kiss my ass. I'm not sharing it, but I'm sure as hell gonna do whatever else I want with it, including finding a way around any DRM.
What the consumer should do is react to this by ignoring the obscenely licensed crap the RIAA puts out and starts supporting their local bands that'll let you listen to music without the threats and lawsuits.
You can also go to places like CD Baby and Strange Fortune that specialize in indepentdent music. I was gonna also link one of my old favorite trance artists, Minister, but he's got an obnoxiously loud audio loop on his front page.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
"The exceptions sound rather broad"
/ ca1968133/
/ caaa2000294/
They aren't, they're very clearly specified and quite limited. You have to read the act to realise that the summary is rather lacking.
Here's the 1968 copyright act:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act
And here's the 2000 Digital Agenda act (already in place, you might notice):
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act
Ordinarily I'd answer your question in greater detail, but...well, sorry, I can't be arsed, I'm going home for the day. Start at section 10.
Blank until
Sadly, redneck politics works so long as you can point to a minority that people don't think much of - and locking them up for years on a flimsy pretext wins votes, even if you accidentally lock up a blond haired blue eyed locally born Qantas hostess as an illegal immigrant for months by mistake, or deport one of your own citizens by mistake! It's not really about racism, or even being authoritarian - it's about getting votes and general incompentance.
I had a flatmate who voted for the party that were going to put him out of a job (abolish his government department), and he knew it - popularism is powerful.
He's a Yank. They don't sit in the front.