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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.

(more…)

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.

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.

I feel like I’ve been going on forever about Australia’s new criminal copyright laws (that is, Schedule 1 of the Copyright Amendment Bill, due to be reintroduced into Parliament this week). Some readers are no doubt getting bored by the whole thing.

But I would like to share with you – at least, those of you who are interested – an exchange I’ve been having recently via email with a colleague of mine, Jeremy Gans. Gans is a bona fide criminal law expert, unlike me. He took me to task (a little!):

I think the three tiers of responsibility are being referred to imprecisely. (Well, more precisely, you’re picking up criminal lawyers’ sloppy language, which will inevitably mislead anyone other than criminal lawyers. And many of those.)

So I’ve been nutting it out a bit with Jeremy’s assistance. I thought quite a few people might have some of the same questions I did. So I’ll set out our debate at some length over the fold. (more…)

Good news for cricket fans. ‘That’ songbook is going ahead now (I blogged about it here): EMI had protested a songbook designed to ensure Australian cricket fans can counter the ‘barmy army’ with their own songs, set to some tunes of songs that EMI deals with). To quote the Fanatics’ website:

Unless you’ve been living on another planet you would have surely been hearing about the Fanatics songbook over the last couple of weeks.

Just 5 days prior to the commencement of play at the Gabba it looked like we were going to have to shred the recently printed 100,000 copies.

After a slight misunderstanding with our good friends at EMI, we’ve been reliably informed that the songbook isn’t in breach of any copyright laws and in turn the songbook is once ahead downloadable and fully legal.

Fantastic news for Aussie cricket fans the nation wide!!

Download a copy for yourself from here.

Here.

It’s always interesting when, simultaneously with law reform here, something happens overseas.

At the moment, Australia is drafting its own OzDMCA. The Bill is due to pass Parliament next week. Australia has drafted a series of legislative exceptions to the laws that ban people from ‘hacking’ (circumventing) DRM (technology used by copyright owners to prevent access/copying of copyright works). It has also issued draft regulations that will create more exceptions to the ban on circumventing access controls. Australia has also instituted a system where exceptions will be able to be sought on an ad hoc basis, when a problem arises.

In the US, every 3 years, the Copyright Office considers whether new exceptions to the ban on circumventing access controls (17 USC 1201) is required. Yesterday, US time, the US Copyright Office issued its third rulemaking on ad hoc exceptions to the ban, under US law, on circumventing access controls on copyright works. They’ve made quite a few recommendations. A list, and comments, over the fold. (more…)

Mental note: never start doing scenario analysis. It leads to more…

I’ve received another question from a reader, about the Copyright Amendment Bill and its criminal provisions: this time as it applies to libraries. Here’s the hypothetical:

Libraries in Australia sometimes purchase copies of DVDs from Amazon or other overseas providers, because they are cheaper than going through the Australian distributor, or because the copyright owner has decided not to license a film for distribution in Australia. Would allowing these copies to be borrowed by staff and students, who may use them for research or show them in class, be impacted by the new laws?

The reason my reader has expressed concern is because:

1. Australian copyright law bans the parallel importation of films. This means that authorised copies (ie, official copies) of films purchased overseas, when sold or dealt with commercially in Australia, are ‘infringing copies’
2. The various criminal provisions all talk about selling, distributing etc infringing copies.
3. So, my reader asks: might the library be ‘importing’ or ‘distributing to an extent that affects prejudicially the copyright owner’ an infringing copy of a film?

I have to say, that I don’t think it likely that we have a problem here, although as always, if people disagree, I’d love to hear from them.  More analysis over the fold. (more…)