New Australian Prime Minister Takes Copyright Issues Away From Hollywood's Buddy George Brandis

from the good-move dept

Mon, Sep 21st 2015 2:46pm — Mike Masnick

We've written a bunch about George Brandis, the Australian Attorney General, who has been at the forefront of passing new copyright laws that were basically a Hollywood wish list. That wasn't a huge surprise given that Brandis had no problem hanging out with Hollywood lobbyists, but had no interest at all in talking to consumer groups (that links to a video in which Senator Scott Ludlam asks Brandis if he met with consumer advocates, and Brandis refuses to answer). Brandis is also terrible on surveillance, but that's another discussion for another day.

Another Australian Parliament Member who worked heavily on copyright issues was Malcolm Turnbull. In fact, the recent copyright law came from both of them. However, despite working on the issue together, it has often appeared that the two were out of step with one another. And while Turnbull wasn't great, he at least recognized that things weren't quite so black and white as Brandis makes them out to be.

As you may have heard last week, in a surprise move, Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister of Australia. And, in setting up his new cabinet he has taken copyright issues away from Brandis entirely (though still leaving him as Attorney General).

In that link above, where Senator Ludlam grilled Brandis about who informed his beliefs about copyright law, Brandis kept insisting that stricter copyright enforcement was important for artists and that's who he was supporting and that they supported his position on this. And yet, just last week it was famed musician/author Nick Cave who was publicly demanding that Turnbull dump Brandis from the "arts" beat, and now that it's happened lots of artists appear to be quite pleased saying that Brandis did not understand the arts community. That link includes tweets from creators expressing delight over the arts portfolio being taken from Brandis. Of course, most of their direct concern appears to be about funding for the arts, rather than copyright issues, but it does say something that he always claimed he was advocating for artists and yet they seem quite happy to see him go.

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Filed Under: arts, australia, copyright, george brandis, malcolm turnbull, scott ludlam

16 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 3:12pm

He just cut out the extra player , now he can receive ALL the money Hollywood's dishing out, not just half.
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Kronomex, 21 Sep 2015 @ 3:12pm

Ah well, Horrorwood, sorry, Hollywood and the rest of the copyright thugs, will just move their lobbyists to Mitch Fifield's office and leave George fuming and whining in his office. I am also pleased that Arts was also taken from Brandis.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 3:31pm

Turnball has said lots of things in the past. He has also said lots of things contradicting other things that he has said in the past. He is a cynic and a crook.

The fact that he kept an unapologetic Nazi like Brandis on as AG shows that he has always been on board with the lunar right agenda of the previous PM.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 3:34pm

Mike Masnick just hates it when copyright law is enforced.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 5:36pm

It's a revolving system. Once one person gets enough money from Hollywood, but before they actually provide results, they get pushed out and someone else gets the Hollywood money. This way they can tell Hollywood they tried even though they knew from the beginning that others in government would insure they never had to produce results.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 5:37pm

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 3:34pm
*sad clown music*
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 5:42pm

Re:
average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2015 @ 6:30pm

Good to see folks waking up to whom really is running the system. At present copyright law is a farce, a watering hole for fatcats and greedy lawyers. It wasn't always this way. It won't change until we raise some Cain, thanks loads Cher.
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JustSomeGuy, 21 Sep 2015 @ 7:09pm

"in a surprise move"?
This was a surprise to absolutely no-one living in Australia.

Abbott had done his best but, short of a miracle, the opposition were damn near guaranteed to get back into government at the next election.

Hence, Abbott had to go.
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tqk (profile), 21 Sep 2015 @ 7:28pm

Re:
We should vote this funny of the week. :-)
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Rich, 21 Sep 2015 @ 7:44pm

Re:
Your life must be sad.
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JoeCool (profile), 21 Sep 2015 @ 11:33pm

Re: Re:
He's kept this running gag going long past when most folks would have thrown in the towel.
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gnbghtt, 22 Sep 2015 @ 2:32am

Re: "in a surprise move"?
It was a bit of a surprise that the majority of racist, authoritarian religious fundamentalists in the government were able to vote out their king in exchange for the relatively sane bankster Turnball.

It will be interesting to see if they will be able to tolerate the "member for Goldman Sachs" until the election. It is likely that the sidelined super-crazies like Kevin Andrews will continue trying to destabilize the "new" regime.
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got_runs? (profile), 22 Sep 2015 @ 4:47am

The dollar corrupts all.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2015 @ 5:09am

Re: Re: Re:
Love knows no boundaries - including hateful, obsessive mancrushes.

Copyright fanboys are one fucked up bunch.
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Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2016 @ 10:37pm

"average_joe just hates it when due process is enforced." Why was this truth censored?
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