That email you just replied to. If you kept a copy of the original email you received in your reply, then you’ve just broken Australian copyright law. In fact, it’s one of roughly 80 times you will break copyright law today, according to figures in the Productivity Commission report presented to the government, regarding the need to change intellectual property laws.
The commission used the above email example to show how “silly” such laws are, and proposed a sweeping simplification of Australian copyright laws.
The report, released yesterday, recommends that Australia adopts U.S. fair use laws, where portions of copyrighted material can be used freely in many instances, including commentary, criticism, parody, news reporting, research, and scholarship. It suggests this will both lead to less litigation, and allow Australian universities to innovate quickly, naming competitors such as Israel, South Korea and the U.S.
It also asks for the removal of an “anomaly” which places 13 million unpublished documents and letters held in cultural institutions in “perpetual copyright”. This means they – and any “orphan works” where copyright holders are traceable – cannot be digitalised – wiping out a huge slab of culture from being preserved. (20% of the National Film and Sound Archive are in what is referred to a legal “no man’s land” due to these laws.)
In addition, it want universities, cloud services, and other internet services to fall under “safe harbour” laws that protect them from liability stemming from users’ actions – much like the laws currently protecting ISPs.
The most interesting recommendation – and the one that will no doubt be under the most fire from copyright holders – is for government legislation allowing users to dodge internet geoblockers that prevent Aussie access to music, ebooks, and other I.P. Technically, you’d be able to sign up for American Netflix, or stream music not yet available in Australia.
This will effectively end Australian labels from striking licensing deals with overseas artists, if the music is already freely available online. After all, why put effort into marketing and promoting the likes of – let’s say Seattle artist Car Seat Headrest – if you are Australian distributor Inertia, if the sales and streams are linking directly to his American label Matador Records?
This echoes the 1998 decision by the Howard Government to abolish parallel imports on CDs, a controversial decision which ultimately resulted in the lowering of the average CD price from around $30 to closer to $20 – and to the rise of those tacky $10 discount CD warehouses that popped up everywhere around the turn of the century.
Still, the commission’s main aim seems to be to – as the Digital Alliance, which represents libraries, says – “would ensure the everyday behaviour of millions of Australians was no longer illegal.”
And if that email loophole exists, in what other ways are we all inadvertently breaking the law?
