[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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