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.