Readers of my old blog, Weatherall’s Law, or LawFont from last year may recall that I engaged in a little personal crusade against the re-writing of the criminal provisions that occurred via the Copyright Amendment Bill (see here, here, here, here and here for starters, or have a look at my submission and supplementary submission to the Senate Committee).

At the time, of course, I knew I wasn’t spouting a new line – commentators of all stripes have expressed scepticism about the use of criminal enforcement in relation to IP. So I thought I would just point you all here, where William Patry comments on criminalisation of copyright, quoting Sir Hugh Laddie to similar effect.

By the way, it’s notable that despite the fact that the new criminal provisions in the Australian copyright law, and the capacity to issue on the spot infringement notices, have been around now for nearly 6 months, the government does not appear, so far as I can ascertain, to have yet drafted or publicly consulted on guidelines for their use. So much for the (government-led) Senate Committee’s Recommendation Number 3.