Australian Media 'Crooks' to Come in from the Cold

pagefault writes "News.com is reporting that millions of Australians who tape TV shows and copy CDs will soon get the right to do it with a clear conscience. From the article: 'The Federal Government will next year legalize the video recording of television shows for personal use, and the transfer of songs from CDs to MP3 players, in a bid to overturn a ban which has made criminals of much of the population."

Any Enforcement?

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

Wow, I didn't know about these laws. Were they enforced often, or just placed on the books so that they could say they did, and then largely ignored? If they're as wide-reaching as they seem (I didn't RTFA), there's no way they could be enforced enough to modify people's behavior, right?

A change in legal status only.

[Ruff_ilb]

I don't think anyone's going to be breathing a sigh of relief because the law seemed both unenforced and unenforcable. If it really made criminals of most of the population, then the average citizen probably didn't worry about this law much, if at all.

OTOH, I like seeing Australia taking a more friendly stance on this. Although the change will mean very little for the citizens, it's a message that they're declaring this stance instead of leaving it de facto.

Re:Any Enforcement?

[Chuck Chunder]

"These laws" are just Australia's standard copyright legislation. Our "fair use" rights don't include time shifting. It's just the way it's always been but has been routinely ignored (or unknown) by the general public and no-one is really going to sue you for it because (I believe) it would be a civil case where all they could gain are "damages" which would be so minimal as to not be worth the effort (As it's just single use in the home the inflationary costing that peer to peer copying allows them to claim isn't there).

While this is being suggested as a "win" for the people I'd expect there is strong motivation from business to sort this out too. It doesn't suit them for copyright law to be seen as flexible and routinely ignored now that distribution is so easy for people to do.

Fair Use

[Freaky Spook]

Australia never had Fair Use laws in copyright, it was always just assumed it was ok, now I guess its good there is legislation to protect the consumer.

Australias has to adopt DMCA under the Australian/American Free Trade agreement so I guess its a little late for this now though.

Re:Everyone's a criminal!

[dysprosia]

They are truly a nation where everyone was once a criminal.

No, on several counts. Do you consider the British prison guards, governors, and other administrative personnel criminals? They were not. Many "free people" also immigrated from Britain much later after transportation of criminals from Britain ceased, they were not criminals either. Many people also immigrated from elsewhere (such as neighbouring Asian countries) into Australia under multiculturalism, these were not criminals either.

Advertising

[Ribbo.com]

The bigger worry is for the TV channels who stand to lose the most from advertising revenues. More and more people record shows off television simply so they can watch it later to skip through the adverts. If advertisers stop paying premium rates for prime time television, then there is a big risk the quality of the shows will go down due to large inshow advertising "hi joey, i see your enjoying a thirst quenching sprite!" because it's the only way to get the adverts to be watched (assuming people actually watch Joey).

Mass civil disobedience wins?

[cloricus]

I'm an Australian and I know of four police officers who are absolutely aware of my mp3(/ogg) collection. My collection is ripped from cd's that I legitimately own using sound-juicer and put onto my ipod using gtkpod. The police officers that have knowledge of this have part-taken in usage of my ipod to play these 'illegal' tracks and in three cases the officers themselves have children (or personally) who have mp3's both legal and illegal.

So I ask; how can the police enforce a law/requirement that they themselves do not respect? Further more I welcome this ruling from our great overlords (who I voted against) as it will stop most of the population being made criminals for using some thing (fairly) that they paid for. Kudos.

PS. Please don't arrest me and use this post* in court as an admittance of breaking the law!

*In the event that this post is used in the above fashion it is a complete fabrication! *Hides in his Bunker!

How is media levy divided up?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question I have never seen addressed is how levies on the sale of blank CD/DVD media is/may be divided up by such organisations such as the RIAA or ARIA (Australia) and given to artists. It may be all well and good to say that the money goes to artists, but in practice I very much doubt it, it is just going to go into the general coffers of the relevant recording industry association to use as they see fit.

So, does anyone know where there is a published policy of how such money does supposedly get allocated to artists?

Re:Everyone's a criminal!

[Anonymous Coward]

"many of the people originally shipped to Australia were convicted of offences which would be considered barely criminal today"

This is not actually correct, but is a persistent myth. If you examine the records of who was on the ships for the first decade or so of transportation, almost universally they were people convicted of serious offences - murder, manslaughter, rape, serious theft and fraud. About the only ones who were probably innocent of any serious ill-doing were the quite substantial numbers of Irish and Scots transported for unspecified acts of treason and sedition.

Re:Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, maybe if we had debtors prisons, fewer people would plan to go into bankrupcy.

Not for long...
To learn more about debtors prisons, see: American Revolution, Causes of...

Re:Is there a real difference between RIAA and ARI

[lorelorn]

The difference is in political clout. RIAA has a fair bit, being able to effectivly write and promote thier own laws through tame politicans. They are also able to get their own one-sided message out to consumers without much trouble.

ARIA has zero political clout in Australia. Remember all that fuss about parallel importing and how it was going to destroy Australina artists? Well ARIA tried to stop it with a political and public campaign (remember the TV ads?). They failed.

Years later, the local music scene is thriving, and CD prices have... well at least stopped rising if not actually come down.

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I would welcome Australia kicking the, what would you call them -- blighters, perhaps? -- the hell out of your country. You Australian folks are right about a number of things, one of them being that the U.S. Government is the finest government that money can buy. As an American, regrettably, I resemble that remark... :( Mike