Dump software patents, allow geoblocking bypass: Productivity Commission
April 30, 2016 at 5:25 am
The draft report of the Productivity Commission's review of Australia's intellectual property laws has been released here, and is now open for public consultation. Submissions can be made unti 3 June - I'll certainly be putting forward my thoughts in due time. ITNews has a good summary of some of their key findings, and implications:
That's exactly what I've been saying for the past 5 years. And it's the same thing said by others, like TorrentFreak. Australian consumers deserve better.
These are strong recommendations, I'd love to see adopted into public policy. Copyright infringement would no longer be an actionable offence if it does not have direct consequences for the copyright owner. What a great recommendation. For example - you wouldn't be able to be sued simply for making a back-up copy of your bluray movies. You wouldn't be able to be sued for downloading a copyrighted film commercially unavailable (for instance, Disney's Song of the South). I agree with their assessment that it's unlikely this will be adopted by Government policy - but right now we have (or we will have rather in August when the final report is published) a Productivity Commission report justifying such a policy.
The draft report always wants copyrights reduced to just 15-25 years from creation of works! That's even shorter than what I think it should be, I think about 40 years is reasonable.
Finally the report is critical of the TPP's IP provisions. I have already given my criticism of it, I do believe the TPP is good overall, but that the IP part of the agreement is completely out of line with Australian values, and should be dropped.
Quote:...
Among its recommendations, the commission said Australians should be able to access online content in a timely and affordable manner.
Echoing the findings of both the Harper competition review and the parliamentary inquiry into IT pricing, the Productivity Commission said restrictions by rights holders were having the opposite effect and actually encouraging internet piracy.
That's exactly what I've been saying for the past 5 years. And it's the same thing said by others, like TorrentFreak. Australian consumers deserve better.
Quote:Australians should have a legal right to circumvent geoblocking of services like Netflix under the Copyright Act, the commission said, arguing that improved access to content would be "the best antidote to copyright infringement".
Additionally, Australia should introduce a fair use exception to copyright law to replace the existing "fair dealing" provisions in order to fix the imbalance between Australian users and content creators, the Productivity Commission said.
...
These are strong recommendations, I'd love to see adopted into public policy. Copyright infringement would no longer be an actionable offence if it does not have direct consequences for the copyright owner. What a great recommendation. For example - you wouldn't be able to be sued simply for making a back-up copy of your bluray movies. You wouldn't be able to be sued for downloading a copyrighted film commercially unavailable (for instance, Disney's Song of the South). I agree with their assessment that it's unlikely this will be adopted by Government policy - but right now we have (or we will have rather in August when the final report is published) a Productivity Commission report justifying such a policy.
The draft report always wants copyrights reduced to just 15-25 years from creation of works! That's even shorter than what I think it should be, I think about 40 years is reasonable.
Finally the report is critical of the TPP's IP provisions. I have already given my criticism of it, I do believe the TPP is good overall, but that the IP part of the agreement is completely out of line with Australian values, and should be dropped.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
