Australia To Review Copyright Fair Use

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.

Comments

/. paying for my new keyboard?

[Omega Hacker]

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.

Can we lead the way?!

[balzi]

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!

Is that so?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Posing the question is giving the answer.

[Capsaicin]

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.

Re:Posing the question is giving the answer.

[Capsaicin]

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.