Category: Copyright

Pirate Party Australia opposes the push from Attorney-General George Brandis to coerce Internet service providers into becoming copyright police[1]. Threats to take legislative action to institute a graduated response (“three strikes”) regime and website blocking will be ineffective to curb illegal file-sharing of copyrighted material and are an unnecessary, reactionary measure.

“Creating a censorship regime and cutting people off from the Internet are non-solutions which are attempting to solve a problem that does not exist,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “Censorship is overkill, and graduated response regimes have been shown to be totally ineffective in practice — last year France dropped its controversial HADOPI scheme, and a recent study by Rebecca Giblin from Monash University’s Faculty of Law indicates that graduated responses are neither successful or effective, and that the future of such schemes should be reconsidered[2]. For the Attorney-General to suggest this as a way forward is absurd and flies in the face of available evidence, as per usual.

“In his opening address at the Australian Digital Alliance Forum this February the Attorney-General cited the Great Gatsby as an example of why we need to protect the Australian film industry from file-sharing[3]. He claimed that piracy is putting content creation at risk. If this were the case, the Great Gatsby would not have made more than double its production budget at the box office alone[4]. The film industry does not appear to be suffering from file-sharing, despite their claims, considering 2013 was the biggest year for box office takings in history, and broke the record which was set only the previous year[5].”

Evidence suggests a large proportion of illegal file-sharing is actually driven by lack of access in markets like Australia, and that it is possible to compete against piracy if you’re willing to adapt your business models[6]. Consumers who cannot access content in a timely, affordable and convenient manner are more likely to turn to piracy as an alternative. Panellists at the Australian Digital Alliance Forum representing Google, Ericsson, and InternetNZ all pointed out that markets with easily accessible content are likely to see a much lower proportion of consumers relying on file-sharing for their content.

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A report recommending the introduction of fair use in Australia was yesterday tabled in Parliament by the Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis[1]. “Copyright and the Digital Economy,” an inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), was tasked with examining whether the current copyright regime is adequately meeting the needs of the increasingly Internet-reliant Australian population. This is the second law reform report in just over a decade to recommend the introduction of fair use, and is more than 400 pages long.

Pirate Party Australia, a strong supporter of the introduction of fair use, was among the hundreds of individuals and organisations that made a submission to the ALRC[2], and was cited more than 10 times in the report. The fair use proposals would provide a generic, flexible exception that allows the unlicenced use of copyrighted material in certain circumstances where a court determines the use of a work (entirely or in part) is reasonable. Several countries have fair use or similar provisions, notably the United States and Israel, and fair use has been credited with providing a fertile environment for the growth of the modern Internet, being necessary for major search engines to function. Australia lacks the competitive edge of the United States in this area, putting the Australian digital economy at an enormous disadvantage.

“Over the past twenty or so years we have adopted many of the negative aspects of the United States’ copyright system, but with few of the safeguards the American laws have,” commented Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer, Deputy Secretary of Pirate Party Australia. “While we increased our copyright term to life plus seventy years via the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement in the early 2000s, we did not import fair use as a flexible exception for using copyrighted material without a licence. If the recommendations of the ALRC report are adopted, Australia will finally be taking positive steps towards copyright reform. These reforms are long overdue and go a long way to ensuring that Australia has copyright laws that genuinely reflect the needs of our society.”

Senator Scott Ludlam’s “Fair Go for Fair Use” Bill pre-empted the results of the ALRC inquiry, and is expected to be reintroduced to Parliament soon. Pirate Party Australia has been highly supportive of this Bill, and hopes that the ALRC report spurs Parliament into passing the much-needed legislation. The ALRC’s report notes the advantages of fair use, such as its flexibility and ability to promote the public interest and assist innovation, and that it aligns with reasonable consumer expectations while protecting rights holders’ markets and moral rights.

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