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Australia To Review Copyright Fair Use

Posted by Unknown on from the prepare-to-be-blacklisted dept.

New submitter freddienumber13 writes "The Australian Government has announced a review of the copyright act to look at the provisions of fair use and exceptions with a view towards considering whether or not the law has kept pace with technology and thus if further provisions are required to ensure the act remains relevant and effective." Don't hold your breath; the committee has until November 30th, 2013 to create their report. Maybe Australians will see their Fair Use rights expanded in a time when it's in fashion to expand copyright protections.

20 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. /. paying for my new keyboard? by Omega+Hacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe Australians will see their Fair Use rights expanded in a time when it's in fashion to expand copyright protections.

    After spraying my keyboard with Pepsi, I honestly couldn't stop laughing....

    Good luck with that.

    --
    GStreamer - The only way to stream!
    1. Re:/. paying for my new keyboard? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you want things to improve, help the Pirate Party Australia get a voice into parliament by joining.
      http://pirateparty.org.au/join

      Joining is currently free.
      Help get your voice heard.

    2. Re:/. paying for my new keyboard? by Cimexus · · Score: 2

      This is an independent ALRC review, not a Senate committee or something. The ALRC has a long history of liberalising laws where it's appropriate to do so and where other jurisdictions are making moves in that direction. I think your derision of the process is premature.

      Either way though it will be a long time before we see any actual change. The ALRC reviews usually only take a year or so, but getting the government to actually enact any of their recommendations is another thing. For instance, the ALRC review of the Privacy Act was finished five years ago but the government itself is only now starting to work towards enacting some of the recommendations (after however many drafts and Senate reviews and blah blah).

    3. Re:/. paying for my new keyboard? by mjwx · · Score: 4, Funny

      Maybe Australians will see their Fair Use rights expanded in a time when it's in fashion to expand copyright protections.

      After spraying my keyboard with Pepsi, I honestly couldn't stop laughing....

      Good luck with that.

      Yes, Pepsi is hideous, you are right to spit that out but good luck with your laughing issue as well.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  2. Can we lead the way?! by balzi · · Score: 5, Funny

    After what seems like years of having Europe and America laugh at our foolish ISP filtering proposals, our crazy tech and content prices, maybe... just maybe, we will lead the way and have everyone cheer us instead.

    Aussie aussie aussie, free! free! free!

    --
    "I split coffee all over my wife's nightie .... serves me right for wearing it" -Speelberg, no 'Spar
    1. Re:Can we lead the way?! by c0lo · · Score: 2

      Aussie aussie aussie, free! free! free!

      Huh? After Europe opposed ACTA (and Australia signed it without a blink) you still cheer for Australia? (maybe you should change the tone to a "booo" and let the politicians know about it).

      I would suggest you to stay tuned on the next step, which is TPP - also negotiated in secret, with a higher potential to damage the "free! free! free!". Maybe you'd feel opposed to it? If positive, let me point you to a petition to be signed (backed, among others, by EFF).

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  3. Is that so? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Considering past news coming from Australia, I wouldn't be surprised if Fair Use became even more restricted after the review.

    1. Re:Is that so? by niftydude · · Score: 2

      Past news, like the the fact that our courts told AFACT to go AFUCK themselves?

      The courts did, the politicians didn't. The Minister for Communications etc, Stephen Conroy has stated many times that he leans to the AFACT side in all of this.

      --
      You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
    2. Re:Is that so? by xQx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Stephen Conroy is a douche.

      Never trust an Australian who doesn't drink.

      But we do thank him for the NBN (even if it might mean we will soon have a national debt to rival greece to pay for it).

    3. Re:Is that so? by xQx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Let me preface this with the statement that I actually support the NBN. It's like building railways in the 1800's or highways in the 1900's. It just makes sense.

      And considering we spend about $4,000 per taxpayer per year on cardiac health-services - I don't give a rats arse what it costs - it makes more sense to spend the money on the NBN than it does to spend it on general government waste (health/military/elections etc.)

      But don't believe everything you read about the Labour government's estimations of finances - they are based on the following "facts":
      1. NBN Co. will have a (compounding) Internal Rate of Return of 7% in an industry that has been declining for the past 10 years.
      A statement that is predicated on the following assumptions:
          2. Most consumers will he happy to get 12M/1M fibre services.
          3. Consumers will keep buying a voice service to go with their data service!
          4. Everybody who buys ADSL or ADSL2+ now will be happy to spend at least as much on NBN services (even though the NBN is effeciently being overbuilt by Telstra 4G that meets the needs of most consumers today).
          5. Even though NBN Co only made $356,000 of their estimated $3,000,000 profit in 2012, the finances are still right on track.

      And finally the last MOTHER of an assumption:
      6. The NBN will only cost $27bn.

      So to answer your question of: How on earth can you describe 3% profit as sending Australia into debt?

      Well, I think our current Labour government are a lying sack of bastards, and the only person in that party who could organise a root in a brothel is no longer a member of the party because that's exactly what they did!

  4. Copyrights shouldn't be patents on ideas by k(wi)r(kipedia) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The file-sharing issue aside, I believe copyrights shouldn't be used like patents on ideas, where mere similarity in plot, character or overall design becomes grounds for suing the developer of another work. For instance, fanfiction should be legalised, where there's a clear distinction between the author of the original work and the author of the derivative.

    1. Re:Copyrights shouldn't be patents on ideas by Sasayaki · · Score: 2

      On the subject of fanfiction, I saw a post in another thread (ages ago) that had a really good way of fixing this problem. As the author, release a CC-BY-NC-SA licenced "universe bible" that is specifically built to allow fanfiction. As long as your fans publish whatever they write as a derivative of that document and license it under the CC-BY-NC-SA licence, then they're legally protected. Even if the author goes all Lucas on them.

      I'm drafting something like that for my own novels, but I've been snowed under with other writing commitments and my day job that I haven't finished it. A draft is here though:

      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hIZbgp1qdfXiML-MkQl-pxvCIjSdDqaXiQTIQIYK6tk/edit?pli=1#

      --
      Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
  5. Yeah, no. by Sasayaki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As an Australian and as a rights holder (who supports CC, fair use, fanfiction, parody/satire, etc) who sees the constant encroachment of the MPAA/RIAA/etc into our legal system, this is only going one way.

    Away from expanding Fair Use. Which is a shame.

    --
    Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
  6. Posing the question is giving the answer. by Capsaicin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good luck with that.

    You're new to this government thing, aren't you? In all the decades you have been reading ALRC reports, or the reports of other government appointed inquiries for that matter, when have you ever read "everything is OK as it is, and we have no recommendations?"

    Read between the lines of the terms of reference. The ALRC has been asked to "to consider whether existing exceptions are appropriate and whether further exceptions should recognise fair use of copyright material ..." Are existing exceptions anywhere near appropriate, say in ensuring "fair use" such as it might be understood in the US? ALRC is going to have hard time answering that in the affirmative! The further exceptions they are being asked to devise should you know. And they will ...

    This is another step towards harmonising our law with that of the US and for a change from all the punitive harmonisations, this will introduce some small measure of freedom. It is well known that the government has for some time wanted to introduce some kind of fair use provision into Australian copyright law. Just don't expect an overly broad one.

    --
    Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
    1. Re:Posing the question is giving the answer. by Artifakt · · Score: 2

      Once a country has codiifed 'fair use' and established some basics, it actually becomes easier to lobby to expand those basics. Not really spelling out what counts as even minimal fair use makes it hard to change things for better or worse, and when a related area such as infringement law gets more codifed, it tends to drive the uncodified area into that pesky 'for worse' category just as a side effect. Just think of how much less abusive U.S. law would be if we had a lot of fair use exceptions spelled out in good detail and all these laws such as the DMCA had riders that said , for example, "Nothing in this bill offsets Title 18 Section Foo04 - Codiefied minimum Fair Use exemptions.".

      --
      Who is John Cabal?
    2. Re:Posing the question is giving the answer. by davester666 · · Score: 2

      It's not harmonizing. The game is leapfrog.

      Country A has stricter copyright provisions than Country B.
      Trade group in Country B: "Oh no. We're going out of business immediately unless we get copyright provisions at least as good as Country A. Better give a little extra just to make sure we can stay in business."
      Wait 5 minutes after the law passes.
      Trade group in Country A: "Oh no. We're going out of business immediately unless we get copyright provisions at least as good as Country B. Better give a little extra just to make sure we can stay in business."

      Lather, rinse, repeat.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    3. Re:Posing the question is giving the answer. by Capsaicin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why even consider harmonizing with US law?

      You're harmonising [sic] with US spelling, why do you expect the law to remain immune?

      Seriously though, the reason is the net. The late C20th and early C21st has seen IP law move into 2 related directions. Firstly attempts to reduce the risk digital communications pose to IP holders and the concomitant internationalisation of the Law. Given the position of the US as the world's major content creator (Silicon valley and Hollywood) and the decline of their "hard" manufacturing sector, it is unsurprising that (after a century of isolating themselves from the international IP scene) they have sought most vigorously to establish a regime which protects the value of their exports.

      The code apocryphally dreamt up in the legal depts. of your Disneys, passed onto US negotiators at the WTO has been incorporated via instruments such as TRIPS, into the municipal law of WTO member countries. Thus similar provisions to those found the in the US DMCA, were incorporated into our copyright law via the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (C'th). Nor were these the last. Such is the price of membership and we are not about to drop out of the WTO any time soon..

      Having imported many of the new restrictions, it is thought we ought also to access a few of the liberties. However, the decision to devise "fair use" exception must also be understood in the context of facilitating international business. Take the concrete example of some US based vendor who incorporates what is there allowable fair use content into a product which could be sold also in Australia. The dangers posed by a non-harmonised legal framework poses for such transactions ought to be obvious.

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
  7. ya right by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How much do you want to bet their conclusions are that "Fair use" is an outdated concept and should be eliminated all together? Seems like a far more likely outcome than anything beneficial.

  8. Australia is on its way to a conservative govt.... by Lord_of_the_nerf · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...one that's balking at climate change, grudgingly promising not stop the National Broadband Network roll out and is portraying gays and dark people asmythical job-stealing closet monsters. So while they're dragging us back to the dark ages, I can totally see them siding with a progressive view of 'fair use'.

    More than likely they'll be sticking anyone caught torrenting in the stocks while dirty faced children throw vegetables at them.

  9. ACTA & TPP by CanEHdian · · Score: 2

    the committee has until November 30th, 2013 to create their report.

    The scope of the inquiry will include the impact of legislative solutions and their consistency with Australia’s international obligations and government reviews and their recommendations, such as the Convergence Review.

    Just in time for ACTA (without the EU) and TPP to be finalized. How convenient.

    --
    When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.