"As an example," said Mr Coroneos, "a family who holds a birthday
picnic in a place of public entertainment (for example, the grounds of
a zoo) and sings 'Happy Birthday' in a manner that can be heard by
others, risks an infringement notice carrying a fine of up to $1320. If
they make a video recording of the event, they risk a further fine for
the possession of a device for the purpose of making an infringing copy
of a song. And if they go home and upload the clip to the internet
where it can be accessed by others, they risk a further fine of up to
$1320 for illegal distribution. All in all, possible fines of up to
$3960 for this series of acts – and the new offences do not require
knowledge or improper intent. Just the doing of the acts is enough to
ground a legal liability under the new 'strict liability' offences." <br><a href="http://www.iia.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=517&Itemid=32">http://www.iia.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=517&Itemid=32
</a><br><br>Peter Coroneos of the internet industry association<br><br>It looks like the new australian version of copyright law is going
through parliament rapidly, without significant modification despite
the various insightful submissions by google, Linux society, the IIA,
the Queensland UT Copyright reform group and many others<br>
submissions here:<br>
<a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/copyright06/submissions/sublist.htm">http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/copyright06/submissions/sublist.htm</a><br><br>It has now passed through the House of Reps and is due to be voted on in the Senate in two weeks.
<br>
<br>
the new australian copyright law is significantly worse than the US
version (which is not good) and so there is no requirement for such a
bad law arising from Australia being a signatory to the Australian-US
Free Trade Act. <br>
<br>
I downloaded the 'risk analysis for teenagers' (pdf) from the iia (internet industry association) site
and it does confirm that teenagers will soon face hefty legal
penalties, fines of $6600 is typical, for their current everyday
behaviour - backing up or downloading music, recording music on their
mobile phones and then sharing with friends, burning music on a CD and
giving it to a friend, incorporating popular music into a video and
uploading to You Tube, recording spontaneous song as video on a mobile
phone and posting to MySpace<br>
<br>
download this pdf and others from here:<br>
<a href="http://www.iia.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=519&Itemid=32">http://www.iia.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=519&Itemid=32</a><br>
<br>
Welcome to the new world of Australian e-criminals, or is it i-criminals?<br>
<br>
There is also an informative podcast interview by Brian Fitzgerald of
Peter Coroneos available here:<br>
<a href="http://www.ip.qut.edu.au/materials/20061122-BrianFitzgerald_PeterCoroneos-64.mp3">http://www.ip.qut.edu.au/materials/20061122-BrianFitzgerald_PeterCoroneos-64.mp3</a><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Bill Kerr<br>
<a href="http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/">http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/</a><br>
<a href="http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/">http://www.users.on.net/~billkerr/</a><br>
skype: billkerr2006