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COPYRIGHT REFORMS: STRIKING A BALANCE
On 14 May 2006, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock announced significant copyright reforms which he hailed will "maintain Australia's copyright laws as the best in the world". The changes will amongst others,
- Make it legal for people to tape their favourite TV or radio program and play it at another time;
- Legalise "format shifting" of materials such as music, newspapers and books e.g. from their CD collection to their IPods or MP3 Players;
- Provide new exceptions allowing educational and cultural institutions to use copyright material for non-commercial purposes;
- Provide new enforcement measures to combat copyright piracy;
- Allow the use of copyright material for parody or satire; and
- Provide new exceptions for people with disabilities to allow access to copyright materials.
The proposed changes, whilst excellent in principle, are in reality, a crude and ill-considered amendment which deserves further consideration as illustrated by the following common scenarios…
Joanne records an episode of "Friends" on a DVD on Monday and watches the episode on Tuesday by herself at home. On Wednesday, Joanne's boyfriend, watches the "Friends" episode with her at her house during lunch. On Thursday, James borrows Joanne's DVD with her consent and watches the DVD at his house. On Friday, James returns Joanne's DVD to her and Joanne plays the DVD at the local pub where she works. On Saturday, Joanne uploads the contents of the DVD to an internet website accessible only by her. On Sunday, Joanne catalogues the DVD into her "Friends" collection.
In the above scenario, Joanne would be in breach of the Copyright reforms from Wednesday to Sunday by not deleting the recording after one use, sharing the recording after one use with another, giving the DVD to her boyfriend for his use, playing the DVD at the local pub and uploading the contents of the DVD to an internet website.
These reforms clearly lack the logic which one can reasonably expect and this is further exemplified in a Consumer Questions and Answers released by the Attorney-General's Department. For example, if you purchased a "Coldplay" CD at David Jones and wanted to backup the CD for yourself in case you lost or damaged the original, you cannot legally back up the CD unless it is in another format such as MP3. You are also no longer legally able to obtain assistance from a business to backup the CD, even if you changed the format of the CD to MP3.
In our technologically savvy environment where consumers and businesses are able to easily purchase tape recorders, mini disks, CD-Burners and DVD-Burners, once again, the government has failed to fully understand and legislate according to societal trends in the use of technology. Attorney-General Ruddock's words that the "Government is updating our laws to keep pace with technology" appears to be nothing but empty promises. These changes certainly fail to achieve the basic principles behind the reforms, one of which is "recognising reasonable consumer use of technology to enjoy copyright material".
A draft exposure Bill will be released in the near future to enable future consultation with stakeholders. In the meantime, the Government has commissioned the Australian Institute of Criminology to undertake research on the nature and extent of piracy and counterfeiting in Australia. The research will also identify options for the Government's response to piracy and counterfeiting in the future. One would hope that such "options" will recognise the present deficiencies of the proposed Bill.
A copy of Attorney General Philip Ruddock's media release can be found at http://www.ag.gov.au.
