Australia's Attorney-General: Data Retention Is 'Very Much The Way In Which Western Nations Are Going'

from the dedicated-follower-of-fashion dept

Techdirt has noted before that bad policy ideas have a habit of spreading around the world. As the UK's Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill continues its ridiculously rapid passage through Parliament, it now looks as if Australia may bring in something similar. Here's what the country's Attorney-General, George Brandis, said, as reported by ZDNet:

"The question of data retention is under active consideration by the government. I might point out to you as recently as yesterday, the [UK's] House of Commons passed a new data retention statute. This is very much the way in which western nations are going," he said.

Although Brandis insisted that this was "not a decision that Australia has yet made," on related matters it seems that everything has been decided:

Attorney-General George Brandis has introduced legislation to Parliament to expand the ability of spies to hack computer networks, allow more flexible warrants and improve cooperation between different intelligence agencies.

The new legislation will permit:

one warrant to cover a network of computers and electronic devices, not just individual computers

the computers of third parties (those who are not suspects) to be used in order to access other targeted computers

intelligence officers to disrupt the operations of a computer in some circumstances

As that makes clear, this will allow offensive actions, including using computers of innocent parties to attack other targets -- a really bad Australian idea that Techdirt has written about before.

And as if all that weren't enough, Brandis also plans to bring in harsh laws against whistleblowers who might be tempted to emulate Edward Snowden:

Spies who leak sensitive information will face tough new penalties of up to 10 years' jail and internet firms could be forced to store customers' data for up to two years under sweeping national security reforms.

Prompted in part by the leaks from renegade US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, the Abbott government will on Wednesday introduce legislation clamping down on intelligence officers who leak to journalists, lawyers and other members of the public.

As the Sydney Morning Herald report quoted above notes, the Australian government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott is trying to cover every eventuality:

the Abbott government will move to plug a ''legislative gap'' by making it an offence to copy, keep or remove sensitive intelligence information, or to make a record of information without authorisation -- such as making notes of a meeting without approval.

These offences will carry up to three years' jail. At present, no crime is committed unless the copied material is actually handed over to someone else, but Senator Brandis told colleagues it could often be difficult to prove that the information had been passed on.

It will be interesting to see whether that idea starts to spread, too....

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Filed Under: australia, data retention, george brandis, privacy, whistleblowing

Australia's Attorney General Ignores All Evidence And Experts: Decides To Obey Hollywood's Commands On Copyright

from the politics-in-action dept

We kind of expected this to happen, but after a long process in which the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) carefully reviewed all sorts of proposals and evidence on copyright reform, and released some sensible proposals, Australia's Attorney General (who is also its Arts Minister apparently), George Brandis, has ignored all of it, preferring to only listen to a Hollywood front group, leading him to push for a three strikes plan and censorship in an attempt to "protect" Hollywood. He does this, even though some of the best research on how terribly ineffective three strikes programs have been comes from Australian scholar Rebecca Giblin.

In other words, despite lots of careful research by independent parties, and plenty of scholarly work to inform the debate, Brandis has decided to ignore all of it, and go with what the MPAA is telling him to do -- and yes, the "Australian Screen Association" is actually run by folks in Hollywood (though it changed its name from AFACT to ASA to try to hide that).

For years, our biggest complaint with copyright policies is the fact that so much of it is entirely faith-based. The movie and recording industries go on big emotional pleas about how "piracy" is destroying their industries (despite record output), and insist that the reason is piracy -- ignoring tons of evidence that this is not the case. There is no doubt that these industries are facing serious transitions, but time and time again, we've seen that those who embrace the transition and (here's the key part) provide more of what the public wants in a convenient fashion tend to do better than they did before. At the same time, merely ratcheting up enforcement and censorship creates massive unintended consequences and little actual benefit for the industries who push for those policies.

Australia's decision to cave to Hollywood on this will be cheered as a victory by the MPAA and its various supporters, but it's a massive loss for everyone. Promoting censorship along with anti-innovation and anti-consumer policies are no way to embrace the future.

Filed Under: alrc, australia, copyright, evidence, fair use, george brandis, innovation, isps, secondary liability, three strikes

Hollywood Has Been Pressuring Australian Attorney General To Pressure ISPs Into Being Copyright Cops

from the because-of-course-they-are dept

For years, we followed the important iiNet case in Australia. Hollywood studios, which ran a group called AFACT in Australia, wanted to "set an example" of why ISPs should be liable for copyright infringement done on their networks, and deliberately chose iiNet to sue, believing the ISP was too small to mount a serious challenge. Instead, iiNet fought back strongly, making really strong points about how ridiculous it was to pin the blame on an ISP. The result was a complete victory for iiNet. It won at the district court, at the appeals court and finally at Australia's high court.

Of course, Hollywood (AFACT is Australian-in-name-only -- a Wikileaks State Department cable revealed it to be an operation wholly controlled by the MPAA in Hollywood) continued to freak out, leading the Australian government to hold "stakeholder" meetings between the entertainment industry and the ISPs (note: no public representatives, even though they're the real stakeholders), to try to broker an agreement to make ISPs act as copyright cops. Of course, because Hollywood's position is inherently ridiculous, the ISPs noted that it was like negotiating with a brick wall, and talks soon broke down. The ISPs made it clear that it was silly to blame them when Hollywood itself was to blame by not making works available.

But, of course, Hollywood never stops. AFACT rebranded as the Australian Screen Association, and apparently has been very busy pumping new Australian Attorney General George Brandis full of misleading information and pure propaganda. We recently noted that Brandis was supporting website blocking and three strikes like programs, despite them failing elsewhere. And, he's also come out against fair use, because, fuck the public, Hollywood is upset.

Josh Taylor over at ZDnet used the Freedom of Information Act to get emails from between Neil Gane -- the "contractor" who ran AFACT and now the Australian Screen Association -- and Brandis, showing an ongoing campaign in which Gane continued to push Brandis with a series of one-sided misleading emails about how anti-consumer programs in other countries were the way forward:

In nine emails from Gane to the Attorney-General's department secretary, Roger Wilkins, and first assistant secretary in the civil law division, Matt Minogue, sent between the election and this year, obtained by ZDNet under Freedom of Information, Gane appears to be providing education notices of his own to the department, offering insights into how copyright infringement is being dealt with in other countries.

In one email pointing out Canada's moves, he notes that the Canadian government was not buying into the notion that ISPs should be compensated for having to warn customers for downloading infringing content.

There are a number of other emails, including a few that regular Techdirt readers may find especially amusing, including one mocking the "vocal minority" who were complaining that draconian copyright enforcement on things like Game of Thrones downloading might have serious unintended consequences. Update: The "vocal minority" has responded.

Meanwhile, Brandis -- who has also been vehemently defending the NSA -- recently took a trip to the US, in part to explore issues around copyright. Did he meet with copyright scholars or other experts on these issues? Nope. Instead, he met with the director of the Center for Copyright Information, who runs the US's "six strikes" program. Brandis seems to have made up his mind, after being pushed on it by the MPAA, and with no respect at all to facts or reality.

All in all, Brandis appears to be only listening to one exceptionally biased party, even as a very long and thorough review process by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) found that fair use was important, and that copyright reform needed to be modernized to pay attention to the important rights and uses of the public. But apparently, that all gets thrown out the window because a Hollywood spokesperson has a direct email line to the Attorney General.

Filed Under: alrc, australia, copyright, fair use, george brandis, hollywood, lobbying, neil gane, three strikes
Companies: afact, australian screen association, iinet, mpaa

Australian Copyright Reform Goes Into Reverse: 'Fair Use' Out, 'Three Strikes' In

from the what-a-waste dept

Techdirt first wrote about Australia's plans to reform copyright back in August 2012. In April 2013, we passed on the news that the final report was likely to include a fair use provision. The final report was released just a couple of weeks ago, and did indeed recommend the introduction of a fair use exception to Australian copyright law. However, something happened during this long process: Australia held a general election, leading to a change in government. The new Attorney General, George Brandis, lost no time in making his views known, saying that:

he "remains to be persuaded" that Australia needs a fair use clause in its copyright law.

That's politician-speak for "I'm throwing the Australian Law Reform Commission's amazingly professional, diligent and balanced 478-page report based on evidence drawn from 109 consultations and 870 submissions into the rubbish bin, and replacing it with dogma-based policy based on my own blinkered views." Some of those were on display in a radio interview Brandis gave this week on the subject of Internet piracy. It starts off badly:

The fact is that people don't have a right to download pirate copies of songs or movies or television programs because the people who make those programs or other items have a right of property in them. The way artists earn their living is through royalties and that's the way they are remunerated for what they do.

It's one of the ways, but certainly not the only one, as Techdirt's "The Sky Is Rising" report explained. The interview gets worse:

To pirate a video or a song without paying the fee for it through iTunes, and so on, is an act of theft, it's pure and simple.

Brandis continues parroting the copyright industry by saying:

The ISPs, in my view, do need to take some responsibility for this because they provide the facility which enables this to happen.

That's even though the Australian courts decided in the iiNet case it was simply not reasonable to require ISPs to pass judgment on those accused of unauthorized sharing. Unfortunately, given his powerful position in the new Australian government, what Brandis says matters, because he can turn his wrong-headed ideas into wrong-headed laws. The Guardian has a report of a speech he made a couple of weeks ago in which he made it pretty clear what he planned on the copyright front:

"The government will be considering possible mechanisms to provide a legal incentive for an internet service provider to co-operate with copyright owners in preventing infringement on their systems and networks," Brandis told the copyright forum. "This may include looking carefully at the merits of a scheme whereby ISPs are required to issue graduated warnings to consumers who are using websites to facilitate piracy."

He said his preference would be for the industry to police itself, rather than have the government impose potentially burdensome regulations.

It's a familiar threat: come up with totally "voluntary" co-operation schemes or we'll impose them on you using our exquisitely painful "legal incentives". But what's really striking here is that not only is Brandis regurgitating bad ideas that haven't worked anywhere, he's doing this in preference to building on the great ideas that were presented to him by people who knew what they were talking about, and who cared deeply about Australia's digital future. When it comes to making copyright fit for the 21st century and promoting the online economy, it seems that the country's new government is determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

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Filed Under: australia, copyright reform, fair use, george brandis, three strikes

Australia Eyes Website Censoring And A Graduated Response Program -- Because They Clearly Work So Well

from the you-don't-seem-to-be-learning dept

We've repeatedly pointed out how graduated response anti-piracy programs don't slow piracy. France's Hadopi program is obviously example A, though here in the United States our own graduated response program, where users are either throttled or bombarded with one-sided "educational" materials, has proven equally ineffective at impacting piracy rates. This shouldn't have really been much of a surprise, considering that numerous studies have shown that such programs really don't work and can in some cases have significant negative implications; studies that the entertainment industry and governments promptly ignore.

Right on cue, here comes Australia's Attorney-General George Brandis, who this week indicated that the country will continue its proud tradition of ignoring facts when it comes to Internet policy, and will start considering the use of graduated response programs to purportedly thwart piracy:

“The government will be considering possible mechanisms to provide a ‘legal incentive’ for an Internet service provider to cooperate with copyright owners in preventing infringement on their systems and networks. This may include looking carefully at the merits of a scheme whereby ISPs are required to issue graduated warnings to consumers who are using websites to facilitate piracy."

That there are no merits isn't likely to deter Brandis. Australia's willful obliviousness doesn't end there, with the government considering changing the law to legally force ISPs to take down websites the government doesn't like (which here in the States is obviously something that also just works so well):

"Another option that some stakeholders have raised with me is to provide the Federal Court with explicit powers to provide for third party injunctions against ISPs, which will ultimately require ISPs to 'take down'; websites hosting infringing content."

This is the same Australia that imposed porn filters that were bested by a young kid in all of half an hour. The same Australia whose ISPs quite clearly illustrated the futility and problems with filters. The same Australian government who year after year after year is told that a ham-fisted approach to "managing" or otherwise censoring Internet content causes many more problems that it fixes. Yet here we are once again with the Australian government almost gleeful in its disregard of sound advice, making you wonder what great ideas loom down the road.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, free speech, george brandis, graduated response