[LINK] New Copyright law

[Tim Josling]

Having spent a fair bit of time going through the changes to the
copyright act as it got passed, I have a few concerns. Can anyone
tell me if I have got this wrong?

Let's say the music/video/content cartel decide to allow only the
production of machines and programs that do not allow fair use.
They can do this by encoding the content in a protection regime
and licencing only those who pay the heavy licence fees and toe
the line. Then you lose the right to fair use of the content.

There are provisions to allow breaking copy protection but only
for limited purposes:

The exemptions are 

- reverse engineering for interoperability with another computer
program (not hardware)
- correction of errors in computer programs where the author
refuses to do so (or will only do so at an unreasonable price)
- security testing
- certain exemptions for libraries
- the politicians naturally exempt themselves (s48a, S183 and
part VB).

There is no exemption to allow circumvention to enable fair use
under S40-s43. No exemption to allow backups. No quotation for
criticism or analysis, or for media reporting.

>From a personal perspective I am working on a program to analyse
waveforms and extract the notes and instruments. This kind of
tool is, even in its present primitive form, a great aid for me
as a learning musician. There seems to be no allowance for this
kind of activity at all. I will simply not be able to do this.
There can be no automated analysis of music unless the industry
wants it to happen.
 
I understand the industry's concerns but there must be some
solution that falls short of total control of the customer.

In my opinion if I buy a CD or whatever I have paid for the IP.
So I should be able to do what I like for my own use, analyse it,
make backups, make greatest hits compilations or whatever. But
not give it to people who have not paid. This is the current de
facto situation, but this is going to change drastically thanks
to legislation like this. 

Don't assume that losing fair use means very little. They can
force you to watch advertisements or previews, disallow quotes by
critics, have time limits on the use of content, limited replays,
require payment for continued use, make content that only lasts a
short time, limit access to the content based on space or time
etc. You will have no rights at all.

Once textual material is digitised the same applies to that as
well.

Tim Josling

IABALBIANO
(I almost became a lawyer but I am not one)