Australia Planning To Recognize Fair Use?
from the shocking dept
Following the attempt in France to free up personal sharing of digital content, it looks like Australia may be following suit -- even if just a bit. Slashdot points out that the Australian government plans to expand fair use to include personal copies. It's not nearly as far as the French effort -- but basically just brings Australian law closer to current American law where there is some legal fair use provisions for taping a TV show or ripping a CD. Both practices are technically illegal in Australia, apparently, so this is more about acknowledging that fair use really exists, rather than really expanding the concept. Still, given that the entertainment industry likes to deny fair use exists, and their recent attempts to get the US government to punish countries that aren't toeing the line over intellectual property laws, it wouldn't be surprising if they protest these moves in Australia as well.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Finally
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Great, but could be better.
What would be even better would be if it were taken to the point that if you own something that is in or could be copied to a digital format then any digital manipulation as well as the transfer to such a digital format would be perfectly legal. This would include decompiling software to change its performance. But I don't think that Microsoft would let our government do this even if they were inclined to do so.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Oh, Irony....
[ link to this | view in thread ]