[LINK] We?re all copyright criminals now

[Glen Turner]

Kim Holburn wrote:

>> There's an exception in the Australian act for sculptures
>> in a public place.  Interestingly, you can photograph them
>> but you can't record them.
> 
> Huh?  What's the difference?

I meant a audio recording.

It's because our Copyright Act works on fair dealing (a list
of exceptions) rather than fair use (a statement of principles).

The advantage being that it's usually plain what is permitted,
the disadvantage being that cases the parliament didn't consider
lead to all sorts of inconsistencies.

The current revision of the Act is so poorly drafted that we're
losing the benefits of black letter law and being left only
with the disadvantages.