Hi Aussiepedians again, also crossposting to the Public Policy group,
TL;DR summary: Australia Fair Use campaign on Wikipedia will stop on
Monday; Australians encouraged to send a letter to their MP (and bring our
total over 10,000) here:
https://www.faircopyright.org.au/take-action/#emailform
As we reach the end of the #FairCopyrightOz campaign (banners on en.wp in
Australia raising awareness of the Productivity Commission's recommendation
to introduce Fair Use to Australia) I wanted to give an update and request:
- Thanks to the diligent A/B-testing work of Seddon at the WMF, the total
clickthrough rate of the banners has remained steady, even while the actual
visibility of them has been decreased. They started at standard banner-size
visible at 50% on day 1, then steadily decreasing to 12% with smaller
banner-size, and also removing the 1 week cookie-timeout - so people would
only see 5 banners and then it would stop. So, we've managed (in my
opinion) to be simultaneously very visible but also non-disruptive).
- Choice Australia (a very respected consumer rights organisation -
equivalent of the USA's 'Consumer Reports'), which ran an equivalent
campaign several years ago (the last time Fair Use was recommended by a
gov't inquiry) has now sent an email to their mailing list cross-promoting
ours. They are thereby endorsing our campaign - which gives a great boost
of credibility too. (Linux Australia has also cross-promoted to their
members, as has the NSW education sector).
- We are just about to reach 8,000 people who have sent an email directly
to their local member of the federal parliament (and also their 12 state
senators). This equals over 100,000 emails sent to elected representatives
on the issue of promoting Fair Use as something that the general public
cares about. On an electorate-by-electorate breakdown it is the inner-city
of the State Capitals which are the most engaged by the issue. We know
we've got their attention because several politicians are sending reply
emails to their constituents that are written the same as each other -
meaning that they've taken the time to draft a response from their party's
position and distribute the same text it among their MPs (which also means
they're talking about us).
- The final day of the banners on WP will be Monday. We are hoping to break
the 10,000 mark of people emailing their MPs. *If you've not already: Go
here, put in your postcode, adjust the template email if you wish, and
send!
https://www.faircopyright.org.au/take-action/#emailform
<https://www.faircopyright.org.au/take-action/#emailform> *
- There have been several other media mentions and blogposts from allied
groups (such as EFF, Creative Commons) which we've been compiling here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:FairCopyrightOz#Campaign_Report
- ADA / EFA have been able to book many meetings with the relevant members
of parliament/senators responsible for this issue over the next week. This
is where the public advocacy turns more quiet, as we talk with MPs and
await the Government's overdue official reply to the Productivity
Commission report. Then, depending on what they say, the other parties will
make their positions known... Unsurprisingly, the Copyright industry is
also lobbying but they seem to have been taken by surprise by our campaign,
since all they've managed to say in reply is that we're stooges of "big
tech/Google" and that Wikipedia is already free-licensed (which are pretty
obvious misdirection/straw man arguments) and to repeat the claim that Fair
Use will mean Aussie artists will stop getting royalties - despite not
demonstrating a single example of a royalty currently being paid for which
would stop; nor acknowledging that 'not harming the commercial rights of
the artist' is a key test for what counts as 'fair'.
Yours in Copyrighteousness,
-Liam / Wittylama
p.s. Also this week in Australian copyright law, the federal parliament
approved a longstanding bill which enshrines disability access in
accordance with our obligation under the *Marrakesh Treaty for the Blind
and Vision Impaired*. There's also some great stuff in there for GLAMs. You
can read about this on the EFA's press statement:
https://www.efa.org.au/2017/06/15/copyright-amendment-bill/ or the ADA's:
http://digital.org.au/media/australia-leads-disability-access-thanks-copyri…
So that's pretty damn cool too!