The result of this discussion is that there is a broad consensus to have a banner for readers in Australia about the proposed change to Australian law. There is precedent for this form of advocacy, particularly around Freedom of Panorama. The consensus supports raising the awareness of readers in Australia, while ensuring readers are “empower[ed] … to get access to knowledge and information” (wording from WMF Legal).
Dear Public Policy wikifolk,As some of you may be aware, I've been working with Jessica Coates (cc'd) - of the Australian Digital Alliance(ADA) - formerly from Creative Commons international - on a Wikimedia advocacy campaign in Australia with regards to the possibility that Fair Use legislation could be introduced into the Australian Copyright Act. This has been recommended many times before by various government enquiries, and the Library and Education sectors of Australia have long hoped for its introduction. Our current system - known as Fair Dealing - is extremely limiting and prescriptive, which is why it was illegal, for example, to use a personal VCR recorder in Australia until 2006, just to take one example...Having sought and received confirmation from WMF-Legal that the proposal is technically and legally allowable, and also received confirmation from the ADA that their staff/communications/documentation resources would be available to do the 'heavy lifting' in terms of public communications, I have been running this straw poll/consultation with the Australian, english-Wikipedia community: You can see there the details of the proposed advocacy campaign on-wiki, and also the background details of why this legal issue is relevant right now in the Australian political landscape.In short - I'm proposing to run banners on en.wp to logged out users in the Australian-IP range who are viewing WP articles which include a Fair Use image (e.g. corporate logo, album cover, film title card...), which will point them to a landing page [probably on meta] explaining what Fair Use in Australia would mean in practice, and why it's not nearly as scary as the Copyright Lobby would have them believe. It can then point people to further resources on the ADA website, ask them to contact their local politician on the matter etc. [I do NOT intend for wikimedians to be collecting a petition]. In this regard it is rather similar to the FoP advocacy campaign run in Europe.here's some local political context: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/productivity- and here's a video that ADA produced a couple of years ago for their previous lobbying campaign in this topic (which was pitched to an audience of online-creative industry in general) https://commons.wikimedia.org/commission-to-say-fair-use- could-get-us-ahead-and-end- the-copyright-protection- racket-20161214-gtau3u.html w/index.php?title=File% 3ACreationistas_-_Australian_ Copyright_Is_Broken.webm And here's the actual government enquiry report which is currently sitting in front of the politicans waiting for a formal reply: http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/ intellectual-property/report As you can see at the Straw Poll/Consultation page the comments so far are heavily (though not unanimously) in favour of running this advocacy campaign on-wiki. It has been advertised through watchlist notifications in the Australian IP range, emails to the Australian-chapter mailing list, as well as talkpage notices to the 1700 people in the category:Australian Wikipedians.So, as people involved in wikimedia/open-access advocacy in general, you're welcome to comment on that page yourselves (though - do please indicate if you're actually going to be affected by this proposal, since it's only going to be visible in Australia). Equally - I'd love your feedback and help in designing the banner and landing page (on meta?) IF the consultation is eventually closed as demonstrating confirmed relevant-community consensus to support. Obviously there's a Communications side of this as well.Sincerely,Liam / Wittylamawittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata