[clug] [OT] Putting the copyright squeeze on ISP's

[Daniel McNamara]

A little offtopic but I thought some people on this list may be
interested. I work for a broadband ISP and this morning this email popped
into our main contact address:

<email snippage>

Subject: New book from Copyright Council: 'Broadband Content: A Copyright
Guide'

The Australian Copyright Council is an independent not for profit
organisation. Its activities includes publications, information via its
website and an annual training program.

The Copyright Council has published a new book: B117 "Broadband Content: A
Copyright Guide".

This practical guide covers copyright issues involved in the production and
distribution of broadband content. We use the practical examples of nine
broadband projects which received development funding from the Australian
Film Commission, and look at the sorts of copyright issues likely to arise
in those projects. The guide covers how to identify the copyright issues,
ownership and rights in new material, getting clearances, and protection for
broadband content.



How to order and/or get more information
============================================================================
The price is $38 for Australian customers (including postage,
handling and GST), and AUD$49 to overseas customers.

</email snippage>

Full email can be found here:

http://www.codephish.info/storage/misc/copyright/email.txt

We have never heard of this organastion before. A quick bit of checking
reveals they have been around a while and do indeed appear to be
legitimate. However what interests me is that this email appears to have
been spammed out to as many Broadband ISP's as possible (I've had other
people confirm getting copies). The email *just* meets the requirments for
anti-spam laws in Australia but personally I can't help but wonder if
they've been asked by, say, ARIAA to ensure ISP's are "informed" of
copyright issues.

If so I can say that we don't like this method of "being informed" and it
seems it could just be the tip of the ice berg. Earlier in the week we
also received a spam out from an Australian company claiming to reprsent a
"INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER" (their caps not mine) looking for other ISP's
to buy out. Again the company appears to be legit.

This email was also spammed out to many ISP's and fell just within
Australian anti-spam laws.

Has anyone else seen simliar things? Are we going to see a renewal of
"just legal" spam in Australia?

Daniel


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