::fibreculture:: Opportunity to Influence Copyright Law

[Christian McCrea]

For those interested in copyright issues in Australia:

http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Copyright_IssuesandReviews_Copyingphotosandfilmsforprivateuse

"The Government is reviewing the operation of two new copyright
exceptions that permit 'format shifting'.
These exceptions are sections 47J and 110AA of the Copyright Act 1968
which permit photographs and
cinematograph films to be reproduced in a different format for private
use, subject to certain conditions."

It is more than likely that the record and film industries will be
pushing for the smallest possible
definition of the clauses, as they are fairly strict at the moment but
not quite truly draconian yet.

If anybody is interested in forming a working party to draft a
response from a loose collective of Australian
media academics, this could be a good opportunity to create a
counter-measure to corporate interests. By
citing the Swedish example, I would for example like to see a
copyright law that makes the private copying
of film, music, text, photo and data utterly legal no matter the
circumstances - including the complete
legality of file-sharing - but allow whatever regulatory framework be
created on the selling or financial gain
of those copies. Even a position as extreme as that can be well
articulated and will most certainly be
less farcical than the last word we had from the record and film
industries, who were attempting to force
a levy on a/v cables.

I would also like to know if anybody else just feels as strongly about
this as I do. I think DRM goes beyond
inconvenience and requires our attention now before it takes root. A
quote from Cory Doctorow is quite poetic:

===============================================================================
For DRM to work, it has to be airtight. There can't be a single
mistake. It's like a balloon that pops with the first
prick. That means that every single product from every single vendor
has to perfectly hide their keys, perfectly
implement their code. There can't be a single way to get into the guts
of the code to retrieve the cleartext or the
keys while it's playing back. All attackers need is a single mistake
that they can use to compromise the system.

There is no future in which bits will get harder to copy. Instead of
spending billions on technologies that attack
paying customers, the studios should be confronting that reality and
figuring out how to make a living in a world
where copying will get easier and easier. They're like blacksmiths
meeting to figure out how to protect the
horseshoe racket by sabotaging railroads.

The railroad is coming. The tracks have been laid right through the
studio gates. It's time to get out of the horseshoe
business.
==================================================================================

Instead of letting the joke play on and on, we could make a public
statement about the increasing silliness of the
situation, where Australians are being extradited to countries they
have never visited for copying data.

If anybody has any interest, we could start a discussion here and
think about what might need to be said - we have
a month.

-Christian McCrea
Swinburne University of Technology