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

from the good-move dept

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.

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

Australia Passes Its Own SOPA, Ignores All Concerns About It

from the because-of-course dept

As was widely expected after getting the greenlight to move forward with the bill, the Australian palirament has now approved its version of SOPA, allowing courts to issue censorship orders to block entire foreign websites outright, with no real recourse. The few Senators who pointed out how problematic this would be appear to have been totally ignored. Scott Ludlam pointed out that this approach was both lazy and dangerous while Senator David Leyonhjelm (from a different party than Ludlam) succinctly explained the problems with the bill: He notes that it's "vaguely drafted and unlikely to achieve its aims." Furthermore, he notes that it "aims to protect rightsholders at everyone else's expense." As he points out, that's not what Parliament is supposed to be doing. He further highlights how ridiculous it is that Australia has no fair use -- and to pass stronger enforcement without fixing the problems of Australian copyright law hinders free expression and public use is really ridiculous.

Making matters worse, as Crikey points out, those pushing in favor of the bill were using industry supplied numbers on the economic "losses" of piracy that were so ridiculous as to be literally unbelievable, and yet no one really paid attention. Specifically, it attacks the claims made that piracy is costing the movie industry 6,000 jobs per year, which is pretty bizarre for an industry that only employs about 30,000. But, making matters even worse, the number of jobs in the industry... has been going up, not down:

In the last two years, movie and sound recording has employed, on average, 27,100. The two years before that, it employed on average 27,600. So, decline? Well, the two years before that — 2009-11 — was employment of 26,600. And over 2007-09 it was 25,200; between 2005 and 2007, some 24,700 worked in the industry.

Employment in that sector allegedly being smashed by piracy is increasing — not uniformly, but substantially. At the end of the 1990s (when George Lucas was making Star Wars here) the industry barely employed 20,000 people. In the mid-1990s, the sub-division employed 13,000 — less than half of its current level.

There's more in that report that highlights how the numbers supporters of the bill were using simply don't pass the simplest laugh test. But, alas, Hollywood still gets the last laugh, because the politicians passed it anyway. They'll quickly discover that it won't put a dent in any copyright infringement. Nor will it create new jobs in Australia -- except perhaps for VPN vendors. But there's a decent likelihood that it will lead to less innovation, fewer new services and perfectly legitimate sites getting blocked.

To be honest, the haste with which this bill has moved through the Australian Parliament is exactly how the entertainment industry expected the original SOPA to cruise through Congress. It was only because so many Americans spoke out against it that it was stopped. It's too bad that not enough Australians did the same Down Under.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, copyright, david leyonhjelm, scott ludlam, sopa

Australian Secretary Of Defense Not Concerned About Phone Hack; Doesn't Think People Want To Spy On His Phone

from the oh-really-now? dept

If you were the Secretary of Defense of a large country, you might think you'd be slightly concerned that foreign agents would want to spy on you. Not so down in Australia apparently, where the current Secretary of Defense, insists that he'd be "surprised" if anyone wanted to find out what was on his phone. Seriously.

We've written about the recent story, revealed in documents leaked by Ed Snowden, that the NSA and GCHQ were able to hack into the systems of Gemalto, the world's largest maker of SIM cards for mobile phones, and obtain the encryption keys used in those cards. While Gemalto insists that the hack didn't actually get those encryption keys, not everyone feels so comfortable with Gemalto's own analysis of what happened.

Senator Scott Ludlam (who we've written about a few times before) reasonably found the story of the Gemalto hack to be concerning, and went about asking some questions of the government to find out what they knew about it. The results are rather astounding. First he had asked ASIO, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, and they said it wasn't their area, but it might be ASD (the Australian Signals Directorate). The video below shows Ludlam asking the ASD folks for more information about the hack and being flabbergasted that they basically say they haven't even heard about the hack at all: Right at the beginning, the first person says he's not aware of the situation, and Ludlam asks "are you aware of the broad outlines?" and gets a "no I am not" response, leading to a rather dry "Really?!? Okay, this is going to be interesting" reply from Ludlam. It goes on in this nature for a while, with the various people on the panel playing dumb, and Ludlam repeatedly (and rightly) appearing shocked that they appear to have no idea about the story.

But the really incredible part comes in the last minute of the video, in which Ludlam asks the Australian Secretary of Defense, Dennis Richardson, about his own concerns about his phone being spied on:

Ludlam: Do you use an encrypted phone, Mr. Richardson?

Richardson: No, I don't.

Ludlam: Right. Okay. Do you use a commercial -- I'm not asking you to name names -- but do you use a commercial telecommunications provider?

Richardson: Yeah, yeah, yes.

Ludlam: So there might be a SIM card in your phone or mind. Does this alarm you at all?

Richardson: No.

Ludlam: No?

Richardson: No.

Ludlam: Why is that?

Richardson: Well, because I don't particularly deal with people who... if anyone wants to listen to my telephone calls they can. I'd be surprised if they do, but I don't particularly have conversations which I'm particularly worried about.

[Laughter all around the room]

Ludlam: So it's okay if foreign spooks have hacked every mobile handset in the country because you don't have anything in particular...

Richardson: It's possible some might try to.

Ludlam: It's possible some just have.

Richardson: [shrugs] Well, it's possible.

So there you have it, folks. The Australian Secretary of Defense says that anyone is allowed to listen in to his calls, because there's nothing secret about any of them. I'm not quite familiar with public records/freedom of information laws in Australia, but is it possible for someone to put in a request for recording all of the Secretary of Defense's phone calls?

Filed Under: asd, asio, australia, dennis richardson, gchq, hacking, nsa, phones, scott ludlam, sim cards, surveillance
Companies: gemalto

Australian AG Insists New Anti-Terror Law Only Allows What It Allows; Refuses To Say What It Allows

from the democracy-in-action dept

Yesterday we told you about just one of the troubling aspects of a proposed "anti-terror" law in Australia, in that under a single warrant, ASIO, the intelligence gathering organization, could effectively monitor the entire internet. During some Parliamentary discussions on this, Senator Scott Ludlam tried to add an amendment limiting the number of computers that could be monitored under a single warrant. Brandis' "contribution" to the debate on this was to accuse Ludlam of being a "liar" for claiming that the law would allow the tapping of the entire internet under a single warrant and then... refusing any further explanation. The exchange is really quite incredible. Ludlam says he'd be happy if, in fact, his understanding of their previous conversation was in error, and thus wished for clarification. Brandis responds:

What ASIO would be empowered to do is that which is authorized by the warrant, which is, in turn, governed by the terms of the Act.

Holy tautology Batman! Ludlam appears reasonably sarcastically frustrated in return:

Thank you for your opaque and utterly unhelpful response.

He asks further specific questions about what the law would cover and Brandis repeats: "I don't have anything to add to my previous answer." It's basically a giant "fuck you" to anyone wanting to make sure that the law isn't overly broad and doesn't allow spying on the entire internet. Remember, Brandis claims that was a lie, but refuses to clarify beyond the "utterly unhelpful" statement he made. Unfortunately, despite all of that insanity, the bill still passed, without Ludlam's amendment, meaning that this is likely to be the law in Australia soon. And, of course, there are other troubling aspects to the law beyond just being able to monitor everything on a single warrant. As many people have pointed out, there's a free-speech destroying provision that would allow for 10 years of jail time for whistleblowers and anyone (including journalists) who repeat what the whistleblowers revealed.

Anyone — including journalists, whistleblowers, bloggers and others — who "recklessly" discloses "information ... [that] relates to a special intelligence operation" faces up to 10 years' jail.

In short, Australia is guaranteeing that not only will they not have their own Edward Snowden but they won't have their own Glenn Greenwald, either. Combine that with the massive new powers to spy on everyone with a single warrant, and Australia just massively expanded the surveillance state, and put a gag order on anyone who wants to expose its abuses.

Filed Under: anti-terror, australia, george brandis, journalism, privacy, scott ludlam, warrants, whistleblowing

Australian Government Proposes New Copyright Law: Basically Hollywood's Wishlist

from the australia's-sopa dept

We've been covering the discussion around copyright reform down in Australia for a while, and it's continuing to get worse and worse. As you may recall, after a long and detailed process, involving careful input from a variety of stakeholders on all sides of the equation, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) came out with a set of proposals that were actually pretty good, including things like introducing fair use to Australia.

Of course, rather than pay attention to this detailed and thoughtful process, the current Attorney General, George Brandis, decided to only listen to Hollywood. This created quite a telling discussion when Senator Scott Ludlam asked Brandis if he had consulted any consumer rights groups or other copyright experts concerning his copyright plans, and Brandis refused to answer, instead getting angry and insisting that Hollywood's interest is the public interest. Brandis also claimed -- totally incorrectly -- that Australia has no laws against online piracy and is "the worst offender of any country in the world when it comes to online piracy." That's simply bogus, and appears to just be a Hollywood talking point.

Given all that, it was fully expected that Brandis would basically obey Hollywood's orders -- especially given that the main discussions he'd been having came with the "Australian Screen Association," which is a rebranded version of AFACT, which a Wikileaks State Department cable revealed was 100% controlled by Hollywood interests in the US.

And, indeed, Brandis has delivered his gift proposal to (or, should we say from?) Hollywood. It involves three main proposals, but the big one is overturning the important iiNet decision that highlighted that ISPs are protected from liability for users infringing, because they're not the proactive party. In other words, under that ruling, ISPs can't be forced to be copyright cops. Brandis' plan would wipe that out, requiring ISPs to spy on user activity and try to block any "bad stuff" from happening, or they would face liability:

The Government believes that even where an ISP does not have a direct power to prevent a person from doing a particular infringing act, there may still be reasonable steps that can be taken by the ISP to discourage or reduce online copyright infringement.

Extending authorisation liability is essential to ensuring the existence of an effective legal framework that encourages industry cooperation and functions as originally intended, and is consistent with Australia's international obligations.

"Extending authorization liability" sounds so polite. But what it really means is "making ISPs into copyright cops" and encouraging them to spy on and block all sorts of activity, legal or not, to avoid liability from massive copyright infringement lawsuits (like the one against iiNet). Also note the famous "consistent with international obligations" line. We've been saying for nearly a decade now, whenever anyone brings up "international obligations," you know they're being intellectually dishonest.

The second part of the proposal is basically Australia's version of SOPA. It would allow for website blocking of "infringing overseas sites." And it would be like the original SOPA, with a "private right of action," allowing entire websites to be blocked on the say so of the copyright holder. A court would have to approve it, but it would likely be an incredibly one-sided hearing, as it's unlikely foreign websites will travel to Australia.

A similar provision in Australian law could enable rights holders to take action to block access to a website offering infringing material without the need to establish that a particular ISP has authorised an infringement.

The final piece of the plan appears to be an attempt to buy off internet companies that are likely to oppose this plan, in that it extends safe harbor protections to more of them. Basically, this is a cynical ploy to try to split the obvious opposition of this plan. Without this, it would clearly be both internet companies and internet access providers (ISPs) opposing. But here the idea is that if they barely extend a few safe harbor protections to more internet companies, maybe those guys won't oppose this effort as strongly.

Either way, this is pretty much what was expected. It's an evidence-free proposal based on the fear mongering claims of Hollywood, and an attempt to turn ISPs into Hollywood's personal copyright cops, spying on your usage and doing anything to block infringement, even if that also wipes out plenty of legitimate speech as well.

Thankfully, Senator Ludlam (who exposed Brandis' unwillingness to even answer whether he met with consumer rights groups) has already spoken out about this proposal:

Such a move would unleash a wave of lawsuits as giant film and TV studios re-open legal action to try and get Australian ISPs to act as ‘copyright police' in penalising their customers for online copyright infringement.

The paper also discusses a range of other options for tackling the issue, including forcing ISPs to block websites, sending users warning notices, and even limiting the broadband connections of those who are only suspected of pirating content online.

What the discussion paper doesn't contain is any attempt to address the real reason why Australians pirate films and TV shows online - the ongoing refusal of giant corporations to make their content available in an affordable and timely fashion.

Just getting access to watch HBO's popular Game of Thrones show can cost Australians up to $50 a month - and the show is only available week by week from one source: pay TV giant Foxtel, which is co-owned by Telstra and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The Greens believe the Abbott Government is trying to protect an outdated dinosaur of a business model where a small group of mega-corporations control all access to the content Australians want to access. This isn't a surprise, given the hundreds of thousands of dollars film and TV studios have recently donated to the Coalition.

Filed Under: australia, blocking, copyright, george brandis, injunctions, intermediary liability, safe harbors, scott ludlam

Significant Concerns About TPP Raised Down Under

from the this-isn't-how-it's-supposed-to-work dept

We've seen politicians in South America note some significant concerns about the TPP efforts, and it appears that some politicians on the other side of the Pacific have similar concerns about the agreement. Some Australian elected officials are starting to ask serious questions about Australia's participation in TPP. The full line of questions and answers from Senator Scott Ludlam to the lead Australian negotiator shows that TPP negotiators Down Under are similarly evasive as our friends over at the USTR. One bit of questioning seems particularly relevant: Ludlam notes that Australia already has trade agreements with nearly all of the participating countries, and questions why TPP is even needed. He specifically asks: "Is this not a case of doubling up somewhat?" The official answer? "No." No elaboration. No, nothing.

The Australian Digital Alliance (the other link above) goes a bit further and notes that the TPP negotiations appear to violate the Australian Prime Minister's explicit trade policy directive:

IP provisions should only be included in cases where a rigorous economic analysis shows that the provisions would likely generate overall net benefits for the agreement partners.

And yet no such analysis appears to have been done. In fact, when quizzed on the economic analysis behind TPP, the negotiator doesn't seem to think one should be necessary at all. Makes you wonder what they're hiding from.

One other point: as with the US situation, the Australian negotiator seems particularly insistent that no one -- even the minister in charge of trade -- see the document until it's completed. And, even then, he notes that the agreement will be 1,000 pages long -- meaning by the time it's done there will be so much crap in there that no one will suitably be able to dig through the whole thing to find the easter eggs inserted for the benefit of certain industry players. This is all the more reason to make the negotiating documents public, but of course that's not going to happen:

Senator LUDLAM: Are you aware of whether or not the foreign minister has seen the current negotiating texts for the agreement?

Mr McCormick : The Australian foreign minister?

Senator LUDLAM: Yes.

Mr McCormick : I do not believe he has.

Senator LUDLAM: Is that because he is relatively new to the job? Should he have? Will he?

Mr McCormick : No. The agreement is the responsibility of the minister for trade. Obviously, we have not got a text that is agreed; therefore, the text has not been shown to the foreign minister. It is a text that is under development rather than a text that exists at this moment. The negotiations are ongoing.

Senator LUDLAM: Has the trade minister seen it?

Mr McCormick : An FTA agreement, when completed, will be approximately 1,000 pages long. As I said, it is not an agreement that is on the table for anybody to have a look at. We are negotiating in different negotiating groups on text when we have not yet agreed on text. It is not something that exists physically where you can say, 'Here, have a look at the text.' That is not the way these negotiations proceed.

Senator LUDLAM: That is fair enough. Very few members of the public have seen the text, so we are all in the dark. I am just wondering to what degree the minister has been brought into the loop. Perhaps DFAT could share the anticipated economic benefits, or the justification, for permitting provisions in the IP chapter of the agreement restricting parallel importations.

Mr McCormick : There is no agreement on that outcome. We are involved in a negotiation in which different parties have different objectives, and we are discussing those, but there is certainly no agreement.

Senator LUDLAM: The reason I am referring to that-and the only reason we know about that-is that there was a draft text that was leaked to the public last year that included language on rigid parallel importation restrictions. Is that missing from the versions we are negotiating now?

Mr McCormick : What I can say is that the text of the agreement is confidential between the parties. I know there are claims that there has been text released. We do not talk about claims of that, but certainly nothing is agreed until all the current nine-or more if we move to 10, 11 or12-members have agreed to it. Nothing has a status until it has been agreed at the end of the negotiations, so anything that people talk about is purely speculation.

McCormick here is being disingenuous in the extreme. While there's no final document to release, it is absolutely possible to release the negotiating position of the Australian government and/or draft texts. Since this agreement is going to clock in at a complex 1,000 pages, that's all the more reason to let not just the public pick through it, but also the very government that McCormack supposedly is representing.

Is there some rule that if you've been put on the TPP negotiating team, you have to be obnoxiously insulting to anyone who dares question why such an important agreement is being negotiated without public input?

Filed Under: australia, scott ludlam, south america, tpp, ustr