Aussies: Here's your chance to expand your rights under copyright!
Kate sez,
The Australian Attorney-General's department is inviting submissions from the public on copying of movies and images in different formats for private use.(Thanks, Kate!)These were sections of the Copyright Amendment Act introduced in December 2006 that made it legal for Aussies to do things they'd been doing for decades, such as recording a tv broadcast to tape or disc, but illegal to watch such recordings more than once!
The Minister is required by the Act to review these exceptions after two years and is now inviting comment.
This is a good opportunity to argue for the exceptions to be expanded (not contracted!) to come into line with general consumer behaviour.
You can download an issues paper on the topic (including instructions for making a submission) here.
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YES YES YES
We have some of the most draconian copyright laws in existance, we have no concept of "Fair Use" like the US, and we weren't even allowed to Format Shift until a couple years ago. I'm not good at writing big long reports, but i really hope someone with a flair for words can write a submission that our government will take notice of.
Can anyone who understands this better than I do please offer some guidance regarding how to make an effective reply submission.
What are the best outcomes from this review and what do submissions need to say to help achieve those outcomes?
The sections in the Issue Paper on Technological Protection Measures are depressing. It seems to say that even if the Act is changed to allow digital to digital copying, the copying will not be allowed if the content is protected by a TPM.
It says the primary reason for allowing format shifting of video is to allow VHS movies to be digitised. Is CSS a TPM? What happens when I need to format shift from DVD.
For the non Australians, while "we weren't even allowed to Format Shift until a couple years ago", it didn't stop us.
In fact, it has put us in a very interesting position regards copying. Since everyone was doing it anyway, the fact that the law didn't reflect reality never phased anyone. Added to our (self) important self-identity of "disrespect for authority" if anything.
And from what I can gather, despite the law going against us, no prosecutions were ever bought on the small scale like we are seeing with RIAA in America today.
mp3 players (well, the iPod) were available for two or three years before we had access to an iTunes store (the American version only takes American credit cards). Hence there were many people, our former Prime Minister John Howard included iirc, with iPods filled with illegal music.
Absolutely no consequences.
Further, almost all stand alone dvd players sold here are multiregion or have region 0 set by default. We've never had any problems playing anything. I don't know why we are ignored by the multinational media companies, but we like it like that :)
i think historically the idea has been to simply enact laws to please our allies and then not enforce them. So despite having some really draconian copyright laws we've never actually had a problem with them. Very few people even realise what kind of copyright laws we have.
But the real problem is that the laws are already in place, so that if we do start getting attention from the multinationals, and the gov't caves (as it unquestionably will), then we are all set up to be shitcanned.