[LINK] Ffx: PC's 'CopyNotRight' Report

[Roger Clarke]

[It's not often that a government agency sings the same tune as public interest advocates, and recommends that the Australian Government do what Australians need.

[The Productivity Commission (PC) has usually been seen, at least by me, but I suspect by a lot of people, as an arm of the bone-dry economics push. 

[But it's 'CopyNotRight' draft report contains a lot of recommendations that are socially as well as economically positive.
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property/draft

[It's a draft report, and there's a big risk that the final report will be far less sensible.

[The PC will be subjected to vicious attacks by the corporations whose business models depend on copyright monopolies (i.e. far too many of them). 

[It will also be quietly but very effectively opposed by other government agencies - the ones that are craven cowards when supra-national corporations and their agents in the US Administration come knocking on the agency's doors.

[So it's important that individuals and organisations make submissions to the PC supporting the important elements of their report, incl.
-   a fair use regime
-   much shorter copyright terms
-   the right to overcome 'geoblocks'
-   right to publish 'orphaned' works whose owners can't be found
-   much higher hurdles for patent applications
-   much shorter patent terms


[The first 'Key Point' the draft report makes is:
>Intellectual property (IP) arrangements need to balance the interests of rights holders with users

[At auIGF a couple of years ago, I made the point that the changes to copyright law over the last few decades had dramatically changed the scene, and greatly empowered copyright-owners over users, and that balance needed to be restored.

[The ALRC Commissioner who was running a review of copyright prettymuch spat at me, and indicated that balance was an old-fashioned idea that had no place in her very modern review of the law, thank you very much.

[I can only assume that there were people in the audience who she was afraid were going to de-rail her if she didn't slap down the nonsense idea that copyright-users had important needs that were currently very badly served.

[When it was released, the ALRC Report *did* recommend more than a little improvement in the current parlous state - which government agencies and Governments have of course largely ignored. 

[And the newspaper article suggests that the PC "goes further than recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission".]

_________

Productivity Commission calls for free import of books, copyright shake-up
Peter Martin
Economics Editor, The Age
Fairfax
April 29, 2016 - 8:46AM
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/productivity-commission-calls-for-free-import-of-books-copyright-shakeup-20160428-goh806.html

The Productivity Commission has recommended the free import of books, the free use of copyrighted material under new so-called "fair use" rules, a leglislated guarantee that consumers have the right to defeat internet geoblockers and much tighter restrictions on the granting and use of patents, under reforms it says could save consumers up to $1 billion a year.

Consumers should also have a legislated right to defeat internet geoblocks set by such companies as Amazon, it says.

Subtitled Copy(not)right, the draft report of the commission's nine-month inquiry into intellectual property finds copyright terms are way in excess of what is needed, offering more than 100 years of protection for works that ought to be protected for 15 to 20 years.
Consumers should have a leglislated right to defeat geoblocks imposed by companies such as Netflix, the commission says.

It says the typical commercial life of a book, film or piece of music is less than five years, but that Australia's copyright rules often grant 120 years, which is the life of the author plus 70 years.

"To provide a concrete example, a new work produced in 2016 by a 35-year-old author who lives until 85 years will be subject to protection until 2136," it says.

"The evidence (and indeed logic) suggests that the duration of copyright protection is far more than is needed. Few, if any, creators are motivated by the promise of financial returns long after death."
The commission has recommended the free import of books and the right to get around geoblocks.

The commission has recommended the free import of books and the right to get around geoblocks. Photo: Bloomberg

The report says the Howard government's decision to extend Australia's copyright term by 20 years to life plus 70 years as part of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement probably added an extra $88 million to the annual sum sent offshore to foreign rights holders.

The decision to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers to extend the term of their 20-year patents by an extra five years probably costs Australian governments and consumers $250 million a year.

Australia imports six times as much patented and copyrighted material as it exports, making it a net consumer rather than a producer whose interests ought to be aligned with those of consumers. The report says the gap is widening.

It backs proposals to introduce an open-ended and non-prescriptive right of "fair use" of copyrighted material that would allow many uses presently illegal in Australia, including the use of thumbnail images by search engines, the "quotation" of lyrics or song fragments in songs, the use of politicians' jingles by their opponents in election advertisements, and the use of extracts from films in documentaries.

It goes further than recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission in recommending fair use allow the publishing and digitisation of so-called "orphan works", where no rights holder can be found, and copyright-protected works that the owner chooses not to make commercially available. The change would deny authors the right to prevent the publication or performance of their works.

The report says Australia's patent rules are too lax, requiring claimed inventors to provide evidence of a "mere scintilla of invention" in order to lock up the use of their ideas. Patent fees should be higher and applicants should be required to explain why their ideas are not obvious, it says.

Consumers should have a legislated right to defeat geoblocks imposed by companies such as Netflix and Amazon in order to prevent Australians buying products sold overseas. The law that at present prevents Australian retailers importing books without the permission of local publishers should be repealed in the same way as the laws preventing the import of music without local publishers were repealed.

The commission has called for comments on its draft report by June 3. It will deliver its final report to the government in August.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 6916                        http://about.me/roger.clarke
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University