Ciao all,
Following up on this thread from several months ago - Regarding the
Australia 'fair use' banner campaign.
TD;DR version - the result is 'no result', and all sides go back to the
beginning.
The Australian government has now officially made its reply to the report
(which it was legally required to do by the end of the year). The report
was commissioned by the government several years ago, and published last
year - by the 'Productivity Commission' on the topic of 'intellectual
property arrangements'. One, possibly the biggest, recommendation of that
report was for Aus to introduce Fair Use copyright exception, but many
other parts of the report exist to which are irrelevant to our purposes
(e.g. patent law etc.)
See this for details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fair_use_proposals_in_Australia#Pr…
The Government's reply on issue of Fair Use is:
The Government *notes* this recommendation and will further consult.
The Government’s aim is to create a modernised copyright exceptions
framework that keeps pace with technological advances and is flexible to
adapt to future changes. There are arguments that Australia’s current
exceptions for fair dealing are restrictive when compared with
international counterparts and may not permit some reasonable fair uses of
copyright material. However, this is a complex issue and there are
different approaches available to address it.
The Government will publicly consult on more flexible copyright exceptions.
Consultation will occur in early 2018 following the finalisation of other
copyright reform priorities, such as the Government’s review of the
Copyright Regulations, and the Collecting Societies’ Voluntary Code of
Conduct, and will align with the Government’s consideration of how best to
implement recommendations 5.1 and 6.2. This timeframe will also provide
adequate time to properly consider the complexities of possible changes,
and gather more detailed information on the regulatory impact of any
changes.
Ref. page 7, here:
https://www.industry.gov.au/innovation/Intellectual-Property/Documents/Gove…
Where other recommendations receive a "support", "support in
principle" or
"does not support" response, this one receives only a "notes"
response.
That is - they are not going to jump one way or the other on this issue and
notwithstanding DECADES of reports and consultations (see the above
'history of fair use proposals in Australia' WP article) there will be
"further consultation". BOTH the opponents and proponents of Fair Use for
Australia have published press-releases saying the "welcome" the response
and will doubtless be the same groups gearing-up to fight the next round of
this boxing match...
I suppose that at least we should be glad they've left the door open and
not directly rejected the idea, but it feels to me like I've wasted a lot
of time and effort. The government was *always* going to do whatever was
its existing policies and recommendations contrary to the party policy go
nowhere (this counts for all parties in Australia - not just the current
governing party). This is not withstanding that our project generated
[probably] the largest grassroots letter-to-your-MP campaign on a copyright
topic in Australian history (seriously: 10k people writing to their
politicians about proposed changes to copyright exceptions? That's unheard
of!)
This whole commissioned-report and multiple rounds consultation has
produced an official result of "more discussion needed" due to a lack of
political motivation to make any change to the status-quo. If they'd
rejected the idea outright then at least we could have a sense of righteous
indignation :-P
- Liam / Wittylama
p.s. For those interested: Joseph Seddon and I also presented on the
project during wikimania this year, which was before the Aus Government
reply was published.
- slides:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Uw8gfTVtHBwnaLQ8ut0f0k1zplfVhvKWEJW…
- video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNmZj2wHNek
Sincerely,
-Liam/Wittylama
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
On 18 May 2017 at 15:59, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Ciao all again,
Quick update on the Fair Use advocacy campaign in Australia.
[If you don't know what I'm talking about - see
https://lists.wikimedia.
org/pipermail/publicpolicy/2017-March/001601.html ]
This is now set to launch on MONDAY morning, Australian Eastern time [this
Sunday night UTC]. It will correspond with some mainstream media articles
that notable friendly journalists have - we hope - filed for publication
that day.
WMF-legal, Comms, the ADA, EFA and some other local organisations are
aware/ready. We have some pre-announce embargoed press releases going out
as well as things on the day (including a post on the Wikimedia blog).
The banner texts are here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fair_Use_in_Australia/Banners
The landing page on Meta is here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fair_Use_in_Australia
The 'take action' campaign site (which will have a life longer than the
wikipedia campaign) is here:
https://www.faircopyright.org.au/
The social media account is
https://twitter.com/faircopyrightoz and
hashtag is #FairCopyrightOz Please follow that and retweet things :-)
Following some technical changes to the banner requirements (see here for
details if you're interested
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians%27_notice_board#Fair_Use_campaign_update
) we will be launching with 50% visibility of the banners on Monday,
dropping back to a low percentage for the following few weeks.
Also of note, the mainspace wikipedia article on the general issue is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Fair_Use_proposals_in_Australia
Sincerely,
-Liam / Wittylama
p.s. I am not on the ComCom list, but could someone please share this info
with them so they're aware.