Copyright Law Used to Shut Down Site

driptray writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian mining industry group has used copyright laws to close a website that parodied a coal industry ad campaign. A group known as Rising Tide created the website using the slogan "Rising sea levels: brought to you by mining" in response to the mining industry's slogan of "Life: brought to you by mining". The mining industry claimed that the "content and layout" of the parody site infringed copyright, but when Rising Tide removed the copyrighted photos and changed the layout, the mining industry still lodged a complaint. Is this a misuse of copyright law in order to stifle dissent?"

Comments

Why do I always answer rhetorical question?

[91degrees]

Is this a misuse of copyright law in order to stifle dissent?

Yes.

Does Australian law have the parody exception?

[MikeRT]

That's the golden question here. Can Australian law recognize this as fair use the way the American legal system can? I think it very well may not be able to because this group is being pretty bold, and I doubt they'd expose themselves if they had no legal leg to stand on the way they would in the United States.