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It seems that the Copyright Amendment Bill passed the House of Reps at around 4:15pm today. Welcome to the new Australian copyright world. Presumably royal assent will occur sometime mid December, and it will all be fully in place soon. And here’s the government’s press release, and a ‘FAQ’ issued by the government on the Bill. According to the press release, we are ‘leading the way’ in copyright reform. So, um – where exactly are we going? There’s even a suggestion that ‘England, Canada, and New Zealand were all considering private use provisions and would look to Australia’s model, which balanced the rights of consumers and creators.’ Lord preserve them from too close a following….

But wait, said the guy with the BeDazzler – there’s more!

I happened to be prowling around the Bills Net site today, looking for something, and lo and behold, I found the amendments the government proposed to the Copyright Amendment Bill. And you know what? In addition to the 12 pages of amendments I’ve previously discussed (initially here, then in amended FAQs here), I find there’s another 3 pages – introduced on 30 November (the other set were dated 28 November). Hmmm……

Anyway, so there is more than I thought.

And what do they do? Well, in fact, they get rid of more of the strict liability offences. And they make a few other changes: to the timeshifting provisions, and some other things. Details over the fold. (more…)

You will find, after a period of seriously heavy blogging recently owing to the Australian Copyright Amendment Bill, this blog will be a lot less active in the next while.

I’m in Melbourne, but preparing for a permanent move to the University of Queensland, site of the excellent ACIPA research centre on IP in January, and in any event, the urgency has gone out of the whole blogging thing now that the Bill is more or less done and dusted. We are all a bit copyrighted and commented and submissioned and discussioned out.

But there’s a couple of interesting things going on: one in open access in Australia, one in copyright in Germany. More over the fold… (more…)

A few quick links this morning on the Australian Copyright Amendment Bill:

You can read the debate in the Senate on the Bill yesterday (several Senators from the Committee: Ludwig, Bartlett, Lundy, McCrossin, as well as Ellison from the government side) here (beware: big pdf). (The debate is at page 23 and following, then page 67 and following).

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The ACCC (Australia’s consumer and competition watchdog) has released a draft guide to copyright licensing and collecting societies. It is seeking comments by 31 January 2007 (at least, a timeline for comments in copyright that’s not utterly unreasonable!!!).

From the press release: (more…)

Then you should read this beautifully-written recap on the oral arguments in the US Supreme Court in the KSR case – an important US case on obviousness. And if you’re interested in more, I recommend The Fire of Genius, and Patently-O.

And in a completely UnAustralian but interesting note, it appears, from what’s being said on TechDirt, that USTR pressure will see AllofMP3 – the Russian site for cheap music – shut down.

As we all know, the government released its amendments to the Copyright Amendment Bill yesterday. The Bill is the culmination of the US FTA, and numerous reviews, public and not-so-public, that have been going on since about 2003, and is probably the biggest copyright reform we’ve seen since 2000 (and are likely to see for some time, would be my guess).

The Bill was due to be debated in Parliament today (assume it still is until I hear otherwise from someone). My initial (somewhat heated, oops!) comments on the amendments are here. My comments on the Amendment Bill as a whole you will find by using the links on the sidebar of my other blog, Weatherall’s Law.
But for those of you who joined us late (where have you been?) or just want a handy summary, here’s my FAQs on the amended Copyright Amendment Bill: (more…)

Here are some first thoughts on the Amendments the government has proposed to its own Copyright Amendment Bill. Get the amendments here.  Get the explanatory memorandum on the amendments (supplementary EM) here.  Detailed comments over the fold, but here’s the conclusion.

With these amendments, the government has removed the most pernicious effects of the Amendment Bill (or at least, those we’ve managed to find, given the incredibly short time we had to look at it). It removes stupidities like the 10% cap on research copying, and includes an iPod exception that does cover the iPod. The key outlier here is the Criminal schedule, which is very close to being just as problematic as it originally was.

But even with these amendments, and leaving the criminal provisions to one side, the Copyright Amendment Bill is an unholy mess of qualifications, conditions, and incomprehensible drafting. It represents a lost opportunity.

Even with these amendments, this Bill fails the two basic tests the Attorney-General set himself when he started this process. This bill does not give Australians the same rights that American consumers have. And it does not ensure that consumers are treated like consumers and pirates like pirates. It treats everyone as pirates. Everyone from 14 year old wanna be stars, to Google, Apple, the creators of MySpace, YouTube or any other exciting new technology. Welcome to Australia, your own personal copyright nightmare.

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Well, everyone – we’ve been hearing how the Bill was going to be amended in response to various submissions and activities pre, during, and post the Senate Committee hearings.  Now they’re out there.  Click here for the amendments.  More once I’ve had a read.

Yup, there’s more. The AFR has got on the Copyright Amendment Bill Criticism Bandwagon. It’s a popular little bandwagon. I’m not sure whether any of the cool kids are playing with the Copyright Amendment Bill Support Crew these days.

Last Friday, there was a story from Lucinda Schmidt, and today, two pieces. One from Peter Moon, Melbourne IT lawyer. Can’t give you a link (AFR are one of those outfits who believe in subscription only access), but after spending a bit of time outlining a handy little gadget banned by the new laws, here’s the general conclusion:

The new laws will be nothing if not complicated. Labor’s Kevin Rudd, sounding suspiciously like Les Patterson, is writing his second reading debate speech these days. He informed parliament earlier this month that copyright legislation now is a bugger’s muddle as far as the ordinary citizen is concerned. And so say all of us.

Then we have Alan Fels, dean of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (and former Competition Man About Town), and Fred Brenchley, former editor of the Australian Financial Review:

Cabinet should take note of backbench concern. It should proceed with the necessary changes on technology locks for the USFTA – but ensuring their use only to protect copyright – while delaying the new penalty and limited exception provisions for further review.

Copyright is an intangible. Complying with it in the digital age with its host of new technologies will require widespread public acceptance. Draconian personal fines and laughable restrictions are not the way to achieve it.

Meanwhile, the Bill is to be debated tomorrow. Can’t wait.

The Bills Digest, produced by the Parliamentary Library, which describes the Copyright Amendment Bill, its history and context, is now online here.

Bills Digests are produced by the Parliamentary Library to help inform legislators on the legislation they are voting for or against. These days, the Bills Digest is often more informative in explaining what provisions of a Bill do, and where they come from, than any Explanatory Memorandum (many EMs simply paraphrase the provisions without explanation). I’ve not read through this one yet, but will be interested to see what it says.

It’s worth noting too that the Bills Digest for the Trade Marks Amendment Bill 2006 (which has already passed) is also available here.

My colleagues at Melbourne, Sally Young and Joo-Cheong Tham, have published a new study, Political Finance in Australia: A Skewed and secret system.

From the Executive Summary:

‘This audit directly addresses the controversial role money plays in Australian politics by asking the question: how democratic is the way political parties are funded in Australia?

It identifies two central problems with the funding of Australian political parties: a lack of transparency, with secrecy a hallmark of private funding, political spending and the use of parliamentary entitlements and government resources; and the political inequality that is maintained and perpetuated by Australian political finance. The distribution of private funds favours the Coalition and ALP and so do election funding, parliamentary entitlements and state resources like government advertising. This is especially the case when these parties hold government. The broader picture then is one of institutional rules designed to protect the joint interests of the major parties by arming them with far greater war chests than minor parties and new competitors. While electoral competition exists, it is largely confined to the major parties,with players outside this cartel disabled by financial disadvantages.

To address these problems and other deficiencies, 35 recommendations are made in four areas: private funding, public funding, government advertising and political expenditure.
Important stuff indeed, for anyone who is at all interested in our system of government here in Australia.

Last week, we all had enormous fun laughing at EMI and it’s amazingly stoopid PR move (as well as highly questionable legal move) of trying to ban the circulation of a cricket songbook that put words to some of the tunes of songs that EMI owns. Fortunately, that little threat went away.

Now, via IPKat, I learn that the Barmy Army have issues too:

As if the England cricket team weren’t doing enough to lower the morale of their put-upon fans, the IPKat learns from DNA India that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is accusing the ‘Barmy Army’ of die-hard cricket fans of infringing its intellectual property rights. The claim is that merchandise bearing the ECB logo and the word ASHES infringement the ECB’s (presumably trade mark) rights. The ECB has said that it wants to avoid legal action, but hasn’t ruled it out.

What is wrong with these people?  Since when was it a good idea to stop people having fun and supporting their cricket teams? Let’s face it, the English Cricket Team clearly need all the help they can get!

This editorial in the Age on the weekend (hat tip: Matt Rimmer). Basic thrust of the article?

Instead of moving Australian copyright law into the 21st century, where copyright holders and audiences will need as much freedom and flexibility as possible to develop new and successful financial relationships, the Government wants to freeze the nation into a model that would have worked flawlessly 25 years ago. These laws are not just an insult to the audience, they actually criminalise the audience. A restrictive copyright regime will simply produce a population with no respect for copyright.

These laws must be junked. We need to start afresh. There are more media technologies coming down the pipeline every day. Each one will present new threats, and new opportunities. If we overreact, in response to a bogus threat, we’ll box ourselves in and consign Australia to second-rate status in the global creative economy.