Copyright vision: copyright jails

In three short weeks the Stevens v Sony principle has gone from pedestal to garbage dump. The law as currently drafted will give copyright owners wide-ranging powers to restrict the use of copyright materials as they see fit. Specific exceptions for the regional coding of DVDs, and the restriction of generic goods and services notwithstanding, there is now enormous scope for copyright owners to control the habits and economy of everyday consumers in ways that we have not dreamed of before.

Under Stevens v Sony if I purchased a copyright item at the store I was free to use it in any way so long as I did not infringe the rights of the copyright owner to, say, reproduce or communicate it. Once this new legislation passes my user rights (outside of the rights to reproduction and communication) over that very same copyright item will potentially be subject to the wishes of the copyright owner. Within the boundaries of competition law, they will have broad scope to control the way I use that item in everyday life.

This is a fundamental reshaping of consumer law through the guise of copyright. The loser here is the Australian consumer.

International law, the AUSFTA as interpreted by the Australian Parliament’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and American case law on the point are all clear that we do not have to go this far. Why then has the government so abruptly abandoned the consumer friendly principle of Stevens v Sony that was still evident in the legislation three weeks ago, with no public debate or explanation?

Australians deserve to be angered by this chain of events and should be extremely concerned at what this promises. Consumer sovereignty has been eaten away once more to the benefit of very large corporations.

While we need the success of our corporations to fuel capitalism it should not come at any cost.

Put simply, corporations cannot always be trusted to act in the best interests of everyday people. That is why laws impose limits on them in relation to things like consumer rights, workers rights and environmental rights. Here again the law makers must act to temper the unregulated and unbridled power of copyright corporations.

To fail to do so will mean a further encroachment on consumer sovereignty in the name of copyright protection, when copyright infringement in any traditional sense of the word is not at stake. It is as if we are saying to the entities that earn millions of dollars from the exploitation of copyright “we will give you the right to restrict the lawful activities of consumers as a way of insuring your bottom line”. That seems to be going too far.

The only way that Australia will survive such a bold attempt to reduce our freedom and quality of life is for ordinary Australians to actively engage in this debate - go online, talk to family and friends about it and voice your opinions to your local member.

We have little more than a few weeks before parliament will decide what law will be implemented. Educate yourself on these issues, as they promise to fundamentally alter our rights, our economy, and the way we use digital technology.

A minimal solution is to:

• reinstate the definition of access control TPM and TPM from the exposure draft that links the wrongful act to “preventing or inhibiting copyright infringement” and reformulate the definition of “controls access”;
• reject the proposed restrictions on the already narrowly defined fair dealing provisions;
• simplify the language of the user rights provisions (for example, format and time shifting, parody and satire etc) and incorporate them into the fair dealing provisions; and
• not introduce any new criminal provisions, at the very least until a full debate has occurred as to appropriateness of applying broad criminal offences, and in particular strict liability offences, to copyright infringement.

Let us not build Australia into some sort of copyright jail; let us prosper in the new economy with copyright vision.