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Aussies Brace for DMCA
Rusty writes "Aussies are counting down to the introduction of the US-FTA-required DMCA legislation, and trying to pressure the government to listen to consumers and innovators, not just industrial copyright holders. Linux Australia has kicked off the campaign with iownmydvds.org
and iownmymusic.org."
When it comes to copyright Australia has some of the worst laws for consumers. The USFTA was what provided the Attorney General with the political capital to establish some sort of "fair use" doctrine. Currently while (according to the high court) you can use things such as mod-chips and reverse engineering (unlike America) you do not own the copyright to anything you buy. So while it is legal to break the CSS encryption on a DVD, it is ILLEGAL to copy content off that DVD whether it has CSS or not.
Basically: Australia is establishing fair use, and then in the same swoop allowing content holders to take it away through DMCA provisions. The aim of all this is to make the laws as similar as possible to the laws of that great shit heap some like to call the US congress.
This all of course pails in comparison to what the USFTA is doing to Australian healthcare. You Americans bag Canadians public health system but Australia's is one of the best in the world. Since the Australian government buys all drugs, we are able to get them cheaper. But the big med companies don't like that. The only reason America made this trade agreement was to please the pharmaceutical companies. this copyright/patent stuff is just coming along for the ride
Have you seen what those new laws entail?
After you record a show from TV, you are allowed to watch it exactly once, after which you must *by law* delete it.
Yes, we finally get some of the Fair Use rights enjoyed by our US friends but it's not yet sane or sensible.
Yes, I did think that particular example was daft. (I read several of the responses the AG's issues paper and the AG's subsequent comments while preparing a submission of my own for the UK's Gowers review.)
That said, it's a lot less daft than selling VCRs but saying that all time-shifting is illegal, which seemed to be the case before. It might not be ideal, but at least things are going in the right direction. :-)
I thought some of the other provisions, such as the format-shifting I mentioned before, sounded a lot more reasonable.
Do you know what the article here is talking about? Both links were Slashdotted (despite apparently being cache links... go figure) and unless I'm missing something there's nothing mentioned by name to go and look up. What is this new legislation, and how does it fit in with the AG's issues paper and the review of the ACA?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Ok ... I'm happy for the record companies to have a choice, either:
... I can copy it, put it on my hard drive and if I lose it I have to buy a new one.
... there is one flaw in my plan, just one word. I'm sure you can guess which one it is.
A: I buy a DVD, and I own it
B: I buy the rights to play the DVD... I can't copy it, however if I lose it I can walk into a store and take another one free.
Seems reasonable to me...
Wait
If I ever get nabbed for some stupid DMCA law, I'm going to very publicly sell my several thousand dollars of purchased DVDs to pay for some of my defence.
I think that will make the point...
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Under Australian law you haven't even bought "content". You haven't even bought the right to view content. All you have bought is a peice of plastic. Doing anything to the copyrighted material on it other than listening straight off of the disk (read: mp3's) is illegal. It's semantics, but i take your point.