Australian government paper addresses online copyright infringement

Australian government paper addresses online copyright infringement


The Australian government has officially released its Online Copyright Infringement Discussion Paper, which was leaked online just days ago.

In the paper, the government makes it clear that online piracy is still a problem, but also recognises that there is nor magic bullet to solve it, by stating:

“The Australian Government believes that everybody has a role in reducing online copyright infringement. Rights holder can ensure that content is accessed easily and at a reasonable price by their customers. Internet Service Providers can take reasonable steps to ensure their systems are not used to infringe copyright. Consumers can do the right thing and access content lawfully.” … “No one set of measures is likely to eliminate online copyright infringement”.

The paper goes on to ask a set of questions to which it seeks responses from the general public and claims that all submissions received will be considered in the process of finalising a proposal.

The first set of questions addresses the “Extended authorisation liability” of ISPs. In other words, what should ISPs do to prevent copyright infringement? Who should pay for those costs? What would be the rights of consumers in this context?

The paper goes on to ask some very important questions like what matters should the Australian Court consider when determining whether to grant an injunction to block access to a particular website, how to better define safe harbour and how to measure the impact of new legislation to understand if it is having an effect.

Finally the paper asks whether there should be alternative measure to reduce online copyright infringement that could be more effective and what impact or unintended implication the proposals outlined in the paper could have on ones’ organisation.

This is certainly a very open and concise way of creating a debate about copyright infringement online and how to tackle it.

These are important question and the answers provided will have a profound impact on the way people experience the web in Australia, so let’s hope the government will receive balanced feedback leading to a happy medium that doesn’t encroach on people’s free use of the web.


(Andrea Leonelli)