Australia To Legalize VCR Recording and CD Ripping

paritosh writes "While the rest of the world is trying to figure out how to stop the assault of anti-consumer intellectual property laws, Australia is breaking free from them." From the article: "See, it is currently illegal in Australia to record shows off the telly, or to transferbangle (Australian for copy) music from CDs to portable music players. The end result is that a large portion of of the Australian citizenry are technically breaking the law, and while that may not sit poorly with a nation born of criminality, it makes the legal system look a tad bit ridiculous. Could you imagine shipping all of those offenders to Madagascar?"

Comments

Fosters Beer is Laughable in AU

[Blahbooboo3]

From the article: "Someone get that man a Foster's!"

The author clearly knows NOTHING about Australia! :)
In Australia you can't even find Fosters, and, if you can, no one drinks it as it's considered terrible beer.

Re:Fosters Beer is Laughable in AU

[nathanh]

I'm not a big fan of Foster's myself. Out of curiousity, what is considered good beer in Australia (Australian beer or otherwise)?

"Good beer" is subjective - there are literally thousands of popular brands on the market... did you know that Australians like beer? - but it's easy to identify the popular beers though it varies from state to state. In NSW and Victoria the most popular beer is Victoria Bitter followed by Carlton Draught. Queensland drinks a lot of Castlemaine XXXX. In Tasmania they drink a lot of Cascade and Boags. In South Australia the locally produced Coopers beer is very popular. Over in the west they prefer to drink Swan Lager. In the Northern Territory they drink dirty water, near as anybody can tell.

There are dozens of other popular brands but I'm not going to attempt to list them all. You can buy all the beers pretty much anywhere these days, so the regional preference is blurring. Of those beers just mentioned I'd only rate Coopers or Cascade.

Re:You never met an australian I take it

[seriesrover]

Put it another way, americans are confused that in holland it ain't illegal to smoke a joint

oh the irony...I think you'll find that smoking a joint in Holland IS illegal. Its just that its not enforced.

So isn't it you thats confused?

Re:'Transferbangle'?

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of 20 million Aussies that will probably post the same thing,
transferbangle is as Australian as the de arc de triumph... i've never heard of transferbangle in my life.
Then again, I don't listen to britney spears either ... and those 12 year old fans of hers have a mind of their own.... they're capable of anything :)

Re:'Transferbangle'?

[Arghdee]

I'm Australian, and can honestly say no-one I know has ever used the word 'transferbangle'.
What a crock of shit.

Re:The rest of the world(and in particular the US)

[bigpicture]

"many otherwise civilized nations have been modelling changes to their "intellectual property" laws after the way the United States".

This has not been because they believe that this is the best "model" or solution, but because they have been arm twisted by the US government and it's shill the WTO. They in essence get denied "free trade" with the US unless they tow the party line.

But some emerging economies like India, China and even Russia are stepping back and taking another look. And asking do we really need the US trade that badly to let them interfere in our internal laws and policies?

Re:When is a crime a crime?

[moosesocks]

That's called civil disobediance.

D'oh

[ichigo 2.0]

Hungry Jack's® is a franchise of the international Burger King(TM) Corporation and has operated in Australia since 1971.

When he said they're called Hungry Jacks, he meant it literally. ;)

Burger King vs Hungry Jacks

[haju]

Apparently someone trademarked Burger King in Australia before the big fast food company got here. They tried to sell it to Burger King for an enormous profit but the price they asked was too high and Burger King simply decided to come up with a different name - Hungry Jacks. At least, that's the urban legend I grew up hearing.

Clearly now that situation has expired, because now we have both Burger King and Hungry Jacks stores in Australia.

Re:And how is

[jtrott]

Job market is up and down just like everywhere else.
Broadband is dependant on where you are living.
Options are cable (10Mbit) where it's available, ADSL2+ (24Mbit) where that is available, ADSL2 (12Mbit) where that's available, or standard ADSL (1.5Mbit) pretty much everywhere in the capital cities.
Availability of the faster ADSL is limited at the moment as the non Telstra telco's roll out equipment into the various exchanges across the cities.
Cable is more available than ADSL2 in Sydney right now, not sure about the other cities.

Re:Will this come to fruition?

[Farmer Tim]

Odds are they will change the laws to say that selling or giving away copyrighted material that is not yours to do so is illegal.

This is exactly what Australian copyright law says right now*, and I don't see that changing soon. The idea is to add a fair use clause; considering the US has had such a provision for some time without affecting the profitability of the entertainment industry, I think the Australian entertainment industry will have a hard time supplying plausible arguements against such a change.

This also shouldn't be taken as a surprising initiative from the Australian government (Philip Ruddock has marginally less care and compassion than the average vampire), since part of the Free Trade Agreement with the US was parity of copyright laws; I doubt any possible changes will go beyond that.

*Remembering that currently the right to make and distribute copies rests soley with the creator of a work (or their authorized representatives), but individual copies may be given or bought and sold second-hand perfectly legally.