Australia Backs Down on Draconian Copyright Laws

AcidAUS writes "The widely-publicized reforms to Australian copyright — which would turn iPod, camera phone and DVD recorder owners into criminals — have been significantly amended. The amendment bill was passed this past Friday, after the changes were put into place. The Labor and Green parties still have problems with the bill as it exists, but the Labor party (at least) wants to let it go based on the fact that it is 'a million times' better than the original proposed legislation." From the article: "Following an outcry by industry bodies and the public, [Attorney-General Philip] Ruddock amended the bill. 'The Government has listened to the Senate Committee and stakeholders and has improved the effectiveness of the reforms,' Mr Ruddock said in a statement. 'The amended reforms make it clear consumers can transfer the music they own onto devices such as iPods and enable the next wave of technology by allowing people to record a TV or radio program on mobile devices to watch it at a more convenient time.' The amendments also removed on-the-spot fines for some copyright offenses, to ensure they didn't 'unintentionally capture harmless activities of ordinary Australians'."

Re:Penal Colony Law II

[mcsporran]

<Pedant>

The Koala, is not a bear, and is not called a bear.

It is a marsupial, and it is called a Koala.

</Pedant>

Door in the face technique.

[Poorcku]

Classic applied social psychology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door-in-the-face_tech nique [wikipedia.org]

Re:Here they're more subtle.

[soft_guy]

"Via the DMCA, they made it illegal to upload DVDs or next-generation audio formats to an iPod (unless you've re-purchased it specifically..."

Can you point out the parts of that that make it illegal to do what you just mentioned? What audio formats am I prevented from putting on my iPod?

What prevents me from putting my DVD onto my iPod? I think fair use covers me for backing up my DVD's and watching them where I want to (interoperability).

I think I'm safe just as long as I don't circulate methods of circumventing CSS. I don't believe anything says I can't use it for personal use....??

IANAL, but I believe that the DMCA prohibits you from cracking CSS, not just from distributing cracking tools.

Re:Idiots were duped by "engineering expectations"

[sholden]

It's irrelevant anyway, the Coalition has a majority in both houses of parliament, they can pass anything they want.

Re:Bad Laws

[CRC'99]

To make up for it however, it's legal to modchip a game console in Australia. DVD region codes are also frowned upon - multi-region players are available off the shelf from pretty much anywhere - and it's also legal to modify your player to play any region DVDs if it doesn't come that way.

Our federal court ruled that it was not fair and an abuse of corporations power to restrict what zones people can watch DVDs from and would have an adverse effect on customers. At least we're not totally nuts :)

Re:Favourite Quote

[alchemy101]

All criminals? South Australia was founded as a 'free province'. Victoria and (I think) Western Australia were also free provinces but later accepted convicts.

Re:Mod parent up!

[NoMaster]

I'm not going to trust that supposed flip side anything till I get an actuial link to see the text.

Then get thee to Weatherall's Law [blogspot.com], the blog of Kim Weatherall, Associate Director of the Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, a senior lecturer in law at Melbourne University, and Board Member of the Australian Digital Alliance.

There you'll find she's put together a good, easy to follow summary of the whole process - from the development of the Bill, through the parliamentary discussion (ha!) and amendments, to final ratification by both Houses - along with insightful commentary, FAQs, links to the full Bill, etc.

You'll also come away with the knowledge that the final result isn't quite as rosy as that zombie arsehole Ruddock is painting...