Can fair use get a fair shake?
The Federal Government’s Productivity Commission wants changes to Australian copyright laws, but content owners are baulking. Shaun Prescott investigates.
While many of us have been using the internet to access information online for 20 years or more, in many areas, it seems like media industries and lawmakers are still playing catch up.
The ‘rise’ of the digital age is still ‘rising’, in other words, but some recent recommendations by the Productivity Commission oriented around the concept of fair use could make accessing material online a little less fraught with legal danger — if the proposed amendments become a reality.
The most interesting proposal is related to the use of VPNs — popular among people who prefer to use the US version of Netflix, or for those not wanting to be hit with the so-called ‘Australia Tax’ on consumer goods. According to a lawyer speaking to Techly.com, those who use a VPN to stream content — even if they’re paying for it — could potentially face over ten grand in fines under Australia’s current law. One of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations is to make it explicitly legal to access lawful content via VPN.
The law is complicated, but people will generally know whether something is illegal or not, just on a hunch. Clearly, that isn’t the case when it comes to fair use of intellectual property online, and this recommendation is just one of several suggestions being flagged. Another suggests relaxing laws in order to bring them up to speed with fair use laws in the United States — i.e. better explaining and expanding what it is and what it determines. In an online environment full of embeds, crosslinking and enthusiast archiving of long dormant and un-monetised IP, it’s about time these matters were re-addressed.
The recommendations, issued in late December, have raised the ire of at least three organisations, including the Copyright Agency and APRA AMCOS. Any expansion to user rights presents a threat to the potential revenue made by creative industries, and organisations like APRA — designed to facilitate and protect the music industry’s income — are keenly aware that the industry is already on the back foot, and has been for many years. According to APRA’s CEO Brett Cottie, some of the proposals are “singularly aimed at weakening Australia’s existing copyright regime — the economic framework around which Australia’s creative industries are built.”
Still, the Productivity Commission’s report claims that the country’s “copyright arrangements are skewed too far in favour of copyright owners to the detriment of consumers and intermediate users”. Elsewhere, it states that “Australia’s [existing fair use] exceptions are too narrow and prescriptive, do not reflect the way people today consume and use content, and do not readily accommodate new legitimate uses of copyright material.”
It’s a complicated topic, and while many are likely to root for the cause of the consumer — we’re all one, after all — it’s worth remembering that copyright is often about protecting creator’s work, rather than inhibiting the users.