As the major parties descend into an ever increasingly infantile debate, Fairfax reporter Judith Ireland reports that copyright law is being engaged as a tool to suppress parody videos on YouTube in the Australian election campaign[1]. While this may appear trivial, it illustrates a larger, more serious issue.

“It’s an alarming development, however not surprising, that copyright is now being used as a tool for censorship in Australian politics. This is a perfect example of how copyright can be utilised to undermine free speech. While the subject here may be a relatively childish parody, if such abuse of copyright law were to become normalised it could impede legitimate political discourse and speech during a time-sensitive election campaign,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia.

Unfortunately it is very easy to use copyright as a censorship tool as the onus of proof is on the person being targeted with a takedown notice. In issues where time is of the essence, a takedown notice can be used to silence an opponent and by the time they have appealed and had their material reinstated, the opportunity to get a message heard can be missed. According to Google over one third of takedown notices are not valid copyright claims[2] and examples of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) being used for censorship are broad and many, be it doctors using it to silence negative reviews[3], businesses silencing competitors[4], through to it being used to remove video footage of war crimes[5].

“There are many issues with copyright and this is a clear illustration of one of them. The Pirate Party provides the most comprehensive intellectual property rights reform platform[6] of all parties in this election, and with the copyright monopoly threatening to step up the campaign after the election[7], those that value free culture, information and knowledge and reasonable intellectual property rights should consider a vote for the Pirate Party as insurance against draconian reforms proposed by industry bodies,” concluded Mr. Frew.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/liberal-complaints-see-labor-parody-ad-removed-from-youtube-20130807-2rgih.html
[2] http://www.pcworld.co.nz/article/483729/google_submission_hammers_section_92a/
[3] http://www.digital-digest.com/news-62976-Doctors-Using-the-DMCA-For-Censorship.html
[4] http://torrentfreak.com/dmca-horrors-of-a-broad-and-automated-censorship-tool-120304/
[5] http://blog.serkowski.net/tag/copyfraud/
[6] https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform
[7] http://www.itnews.com.au/News/352530,copyright-owners-group-tears-apart-law-review-process.aspx