[clug] New copyright law?
Michael James
clug2 at james.st
Mon Nov 20 04:09:20 GMT 2006
On Monday 20 November 2006 12:47 pm, Ian McCulloch wrote:
> Currently on Slashdot:
>
> Draconian Anti-Piracy Law Looms Over Australia
Risking fines of who-knows-how-much,
here is what Crikey had to say on the 8th Nov.
We’re all copyright criminals now
Date: Wednesday, 8 November 2006
Intellectual property academic Kim Weatherall writes:
Imagine this: girl having great time at live concert uses fabulous slimline
phone with mp3 recorder and camera to capture the moment. She sends it to
her home computer, and later plays it for the office Christmas party.
According to the Australian government she is a criminal. Under laws now
being debated in the Senate and due to pass in coming weeks, she is:
* Making a direct recording of a performance without the permission of
the performer(s): criminal offence, $6,600 fine;
* Possessing equipment to copy an unauthorised recording: criminal
offence, $6,600 fine;
* Making a copy of an unauthorised recording: criminal offence, $6,600
fine;
* Paying an unauthorised recording publicly: criminal offence, $6,600
fine.
Total fines: $26,400.
And she’s not alone. These laws are so broad that they also catch:
* The company, selling a research report, whose employee cut-and-pasted
a photograph from online to make the cover look pretty;
* You, if you own a device that will be used for making infringing
copies. Make sure you get rid of that video-recorder you’re using to tape
TV shows for your mother-in-law.
The proposed bill also creates on-the-spot fines -- infringe copyright and
you could be up for a $1,320 fine, on the spot. While we’ve always had
criminal offences in the Copyright Act, these laws only applied to people
who act intentionally or recklessly. The requirement of intent is one of
the most fundamental protections of criminal law. The Copyright Amendment
Bill removes that: you can now be a copyright criminal without knowledge or
intention.
The government will tell you that the provisions will only be enforced
against "pirates" – the guys importing pirate DVDs and the dudes at the
market selling pirated software. If so, why aren’t these offences
restricted to activities carried out for profit, on a commercial scale?
The government will also tell you that we can’t draft these provisions more
narrowly and people should have trust in how they will be enforced. But the
reality seems to be that they want these laws through quickly and haven’t
publicly consulted.
So what is behind these new laws -- and why the rush? Well, parts of the
bill are there because we need them to comply with the US FTA – that’s
Schedule 12, the ‘anti-hacking’ law about digital rights management. But
the government is using this urgency to push through a lot of other stuff,
including the criminal laws.
What I’d like to know is how the government plans to explain these laws to
parents and families who will suddenly become copyright criminals, and to
small businesses who will have to fund copyright training out of already
stretched budgets.
For more articles about the state of Intellectual Property law in Australia,
head to Weatherall's blog: IP in the land of Oz (and more).
http://weatherall.blogspot.com/
--
Michael James michael.james at csiro.au
System Administrator voice: 02 6246 5040
CSIRO Bioinformatics Facility fax: 02 6246 5166
No effective Senate leads to bad law. Bring back the Democrats.
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