Australia Backs Down on Draconian Copyright Laws 113
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'."
So the original authors get what they want! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good God, some strategies are so old and obvious I'd be amazed that they still work if I didn't know most people are idiots.
Bad Laws (Score:2, Insightful)
American cred (Score:4, Insightful)
-b.
Mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)
The parent poster has the issue dead bang on. Propose something insane and jackbootish, then compromise so it's "merely" oppressive.
On the flip side, it does sound like the current issue is explicitly and expressly granting media conversion and playback rights to people. That isn't what I'd call "oppressive", but a clarification of personal use rights that should have been obvious in any country.
Ah, Daddy I want a pony (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's how it works:
Kid: Daddy, I want a pony
Dad: Honey, be reasonable. A pony requires land, a stable, and constant care!
Kid: But Daddy, I want a pony!
Dad: It would cost thousands of dollars, we can't afford it, you don't know if you like horses.
Kid: (crying) BUT DADDY, I WANT A PONY!
Dad: Uh uh uh... How about a dog instead?
Kid: (crying stops) Oh okay, I can settle for that.
So dad thinks "Phew! That was close, I almost had to buy a pony"
You see this with taxes all the time. They threaten to tax everything... cars, boats, children, blades of grass, pimples on your chin. And then they "settle" for raising income tax another few points. And then you're supposed to feel "relieved".
Boy, that's some mighty hot water... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks,
Kermit
Smoke and mirrors (Score:5, Insightful)
Here they're more subtle. (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. and Australia have much the same disease, it's just that they seem to have gotten hit with a more virulent form, and thus noticed it; here we seem to have the creeping, cancerlike version, and for the most part are still ignoring it and hoping it'll go away.
Re:So the original authors get what they want! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think its because most people like to avoid confrontation and thinking as much as possible.
Truly Faulty Logic (Score:4, Insightful)
A bad law that's now a less bad law is still a bad law. Such faulty rationale only leads lobbyists to ask for the truly impossibly unreasonable, knowing that the compromise will still give them the mostly unreasonable.
Reminds me of a recent case where one woman won a major lottery jackpot, and immediately another woman claimed this was her winning ticket, which she had lost in the convenience store parking lot. The compromisers in the public media were claiming that, because so much money was involved, that it would be fair to just split the money between the two claimants. I don't know whose idea of fair this is, but certainly not mine. The woman claiming to have lost the ticket eventually admitted to lying about this, and the true winner was paid all of their winnings.
Moral: Don't fall for the trap that the fair solution would be to give us half of what we originally asked for. Some people deserve none at all!
But do they realize... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ah, Daddy I want a pony (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually...they do the opposite, which kids...and I don't understand it.
They really should tax you for children...rather than give you a tax break. People children are an extra burden on society...schools, medical, social services (for so many people that are irresponsible for their own kids). In short, people have kids, which use up extra resources. Why should they not take a larger role in paying for them, rather than getting a cut in taxes, and costing those without kids more?
I mean, I hear the arguement, that tax breaks encourage people to have more kids. Why? People will always f*ck. F*cking will result in kids...I don't think anyone needs encouragement to screw more. I don't think that any couple has said to each other.."Hon...I just don't wanna have any (more) kids.". "But babe, look at the tax write off we'll get for the kids if we have it"."Ok, babe...take them panties on down there then!!!"
Anyway, so, if they're looking for revenues that target a burden that uses the resources that these taxes pay for...tax parents for each kid they have.
Re:But seeing the close ties that this govenment h (Score:3, Insightful)
Solving that problem depends on refactoring the foundations of the concept and realizing that copyright in itself is an actual tax (extracted from the economy by means of legal monopoly pricing).
Once you realize that copyright _is_ a tax, despite its masquerade, it becomes a problem no more or less difficult to solve than any other government incentives and financing situations (ie, is the tax base as equitable as possible, does the taxation do as little secondary economic damage as possible, is the money going to the intended recipients and achieving its purpose, etc).
Re:Ah, Daddy I want a pony (Score:3, Insightful)
They really should tax you for children...rather than give you a tax break.
I'm not arguing for or against anything here... if someone has concrete effective improvements to suggest to the system, great. I'm merely trying to adress your stated not-understanding why things are the way they are.
In theory people should build up a signifigant cash nest egg before creating a child, to properly supply that child's needs.
Unfortuantely I'm not aware of any acceptable means of actually ensuring/enforcing that in practice. Any means I can think of to attempt to enforce it would require inherently "evil" means and/or would be wide open to abuse in one way or another. You need a licence to get a dog, but any incompetent jackass gets to pop out kids. As bad as that is, I hardly want to contemplate a governement rounding people up at gunpoint and forcibly sterilizing them or forcibly preforming abortions on them, or anything else within ten thousand miles of that.
So in practice a signifigant number of people will produce kids without building up the advance savings to fully cover the costs of turning that child into a maximally productive 18-year-old citizen entering society. In practice a malnourished and/or uneducated and/or substandard medical cared child will result in greater long term indirect social costs upon you and me than the cost taxes to help ensure that those minimum standards are met. For example you cannot run a democracy with an uneducated population. Even with (tax based) universal public education we already have a hard enough time maintaining the quality of our democracy. Paying taxes to run a public school system is a small price to pay to ensure minimally prepared citizens entering the elecorate, and minimally prepared workers entering the national workforce. Paying those taxes are worth it and benefit you and me, even if we have no children of our own.
Now more specifically to the "child tax credit". Unfortuantely most people are rotten at planing ahead, and in particular have a rough time adapting to a drop in available cash flow. You may be able to get by fine on an $X budget, but if you have established mortgage payments and car payments and food shopping etc etc etc based on a higher $Y budget can make it extremly difficult to move to that lower $X budget... especially when you can't change the mortgage payment or the car payments. Even a reasonable well off middle class family can get "crunched" by child expenses when they had a previously balanced budget with substantial fixed exppenses like a mortgage.
The idea is that you don't want the child.... the future citizen... to get caught in that crunch and wind up long-term "impaired" with the inevitable long term costs and negative impact on society itself... the long term impact on you and me. The $1000 child tax credit ensures at least a $1000 buffer to shield the developing child from suffering the worst brunt of that crunch (food / clothing / medical care).
Again, I'm not fighting for anything here. Well, I *would* argue for public school taxes but I'm not taking any sort of side on child tax credits. I see it as an ugly solution to an ugly problem. Offhand I don't have anything to offer I consider much of a better answer to the ugly problem... I don't have much interest in the subject and nothing particularly to fight for either way. If I have nothing to offer on an ugly problem then I'm fairly content to with whatever other poeple (who do have an interest/position) work out on that ugly problem.
So you may well disagree with the reasoning/justistification for child tax credits (I agree it's an ugly solution), but hopefully you now understand it. Maybe now you do agree with it, or maybe now you can rationally try to improve it. I'd say understanding and dissagreeing is a step up and more productive than not understanding.
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Re:Ah, Daddy I want a pony (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah apart from all those GAPING HOLES you've thought this through real well pal. Couldn't possibly have anything to do personal issues and resentment of children.