Pirate Party Australia has today launched a Senate petition in retaliation against Cabinet’s consideration of anti-piracy measures. It was reported on Monday that proposals were being considered by the Government to introduce a graduated response (“three strikes”) regime and mandatory website blocking, tactics which have failed elsewhere[1]. The petition is open for signature on change.org.

Brendan Molloy, Councillor of Pirate Party Australia, commented: “There has been no evidence advanced that graduated response regimes are effective. In fact, academic literature on the matter has been sceptical that they have any measurable impact on reducing file-sharing[2][3]. Instead, there is evidence that increasing access to content through legitimate services such as Netflix and Spotify has significantly reduced file-sharing[4]. It has also been shown in an important court decision in the Netherlands that there is yet to be a proven benefit to blocking websites. The Dutch experience indicates that blocking access is ineffective, and not surprisingly people will simply find ways around blockades[5].”

Mr Molloy continued: “Our petition is intended to remind the Senate of its obligations as the House of Review. It lays out detailed reasons for opposition to the proposals — including that neither will work — and calls on the Senate to reject any legislation instituting either a graduated response scheme or website blocking.”

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Pirate Party Australia is appalled by the news that the Abbott Government is allegedly considering proposals to introduce legislation to institute Internet censorship and a graduated response (“three-strikes”) regime in an ill-conceived attempt to curb the incidence of unlawful file-sharing[1].

“There is no public support for this proposed legislation,” commented Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “Why would the public support blocking of one of the few means of access to content in this broken digital economy?

“Prior to the election this wasn’t even being discussed. However, the Government is bringing the proposal back to the table following donations of more than $300,000 from Village Roadshow in the last financial year[2]. It has also come to light that a key industry lobbyist has had privileged access to staff at the Attorney-General’s Department[3]. This may be coincidence, but it looks suspicious that file-sharing is now prominent on the Government’s agenda, while there has been no observed movement on recommendations from the Australian Law Reform Commission regarding genuinely important areas of copyright reform.”

In January this year, the Netherlands Court of Appeal in the Hague ruled that blockades of the Pirate Bay were ineffective and easy to circumvent, and that ISPs were no longer required to block access to the popular torrent site[4]. In addition, studies in Australia and around the world have cast doubt on the efficacy of graduated response regimes, with a paper from Rebecca Giblin of Monash University’s Faculty of Law concluding that there is “little to no evidence” graduated responses deter or reduce copyright infringement[5][6]. Despite similar legislation being introduced in a number of countries to date, no evidence has emerged that these have resulted in lowering file-sharing behaviour, nor do they offer any significant protections for content providers.

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