What's Wrong with Australian Copyright Law

What's Wrong with Australian Copyright Law? I made a very similar post to my old MSN Space. Since that post, I have made several minor alterations, but the body remains the same. I have decided to post it here because I should like to know what your feelings are on this issue. Today's implementation of copyright law has been taken so far away from its roots as a tool to help artists (creators of original works) that it's hard to see any relationship between the two. Copyright law benefits not the artists, but the big corporations. Copyright law no longer promotes originality and imagination; on the contrary, it stifles it. "If creativity is the field, copyright is the fence." John Oswald Oswald illustrates the negative function of copyright with which I am concerned--that copyright cannot promote creativity, it can only suffocate it. Copyright serves to limit access to copyrighted works based on the whims of the copyright holder and as such is a boundary we place on creativity (in the form of limiting access to creative materials) and therefore are not truly able to be creative. "If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675 Sir Isaac Newton (British physicist and mathematician, 1642-1727) believed that he would not have been able to go as far as he did without the contributions of those who went before him. By limiting access to original works, we are not able to benefit from those who have gone before. If Newton was subjected to the same copyright laws as we are today, he may never have developed the calculus, his law of gravitation or his three laws of motion. The original intent of copyright law was to promote a public good, not a private one and no matter how valid the original intent of our nation's copyright laws may have been, they are now clearly being subverted. "DO WE REALLY HAVE TO SUE THE RIAA" http://www.negativland.com/riaa/dowesue.html Not only does excessive copyright legislation put a dampener on creativity, it also stalls the creation of new technology by regulating design or specification. Here is an example (which thankfully has not yet been put in place): In an attempt to build in copy-control technology or to make illegal any machine that might facilitate infringement, the Motion Picture Association of America recently asked Congress for radical new proposals that would put the U.S. Government in the business of dictating standards for computer electronics. Siva Vaidhyanathan "Celestial Jukebox: The Paradox of Intellectual Property" American Scholar, Spring 2005 Here is another example of our implementation of copyright serving a private rather than a public good. ... a situation now exists that is no longer about an individual record label or publisher going after an individual "copyright infringement" as has happened ... in the past. We are now faced with the very real situation that the entire corporate music industry ... is preventing an entire aesthetic, completely circumventing our legal system, and keeping the raging debate over the re-use of our common culture from ever reaching a public or legal forum. "DO WE REALLY HAVE TO SUE THE RIAA" http://www.negativland.com/riaa/dowesue.html What is Protected Under Australian Copyright Law? Australian copyright laws are some of the most comprehensive in the world: they provide the most complete protection and the least number of 'fair uses' (there is no undefined 'fair use' in Australian copyright law as in American copyright law). Copyright is a type of legal protection for people who express ideas and information in certain forms. The most common forms are: writing, visual images, music and moving images. ... You do not need to publish your work, to put a copyright protection notice on it, or to do anything else to be covered by copyright--the protection is free and automatic ... A work is protected automatically from the time it was first written down or recorded in some way, provided it has resulted from the creator's skill and effort and is not simply copied from another work. "Copyright Basics" Australian Copyright Council http://www.copyright.org/information/basics.htm There are, however, no provisions in the Act that give non-profit organisations a general exemption from having to comply with copyright obligations merely because they are non-profit, and there are no exemptions based simply on "personal use" of copyright material. "Information Sheet G10--An Introduction to Copyright in Australia" Australian Copyright Council, August 2004 Make People Pay for an Idea Our current implementation of copyright law is, in my opinion, all about the selfish nature of humanity. If I come up with an original idea, do I deserve to be compensated for my originality (I am not talking about the time taken to develop an idea)? Or should that idea benefit everybody freely? If we continue to restrict access to ideas, the only people who benefit are a select few with enough money to pay for access, and the owner of the copyright (who may or may not be the original author). "He who receives an idea from me receives it without lessening me, as he who lights a candle at mine receives light without darkening me." Thomas Jefferson Jefferson is talking about the basic tenets of a free society--the free exchange of thoughts and ideas. Copyright law can only reduce the amount of knowledge we have at our disposal. Intellectual "property" does not behave like material property. If I give you a physical object, I no longer have use or control of that thing, and may ask something in return--some payment or barter. But when I give you an idea, I lose nothing. I can still use that idea as I wish. I need ask nothing in return. The laws of exchange of matter being so very different from the laws of exchange of information, any attempts to trade ideas with material goods was destined for trouble sooner or later. http://www.anticopyright.com/ Propaganda Are You a Pirate? Have you ever heard of the term “software piracy” (before reading this essay, of course)? I doubt that there are many left in our society who could answer that question truthfully with a negative. Let’s look at the definition of piracy: The action or practice of a pirate. 1. a. The practice of crime or robbery and depredation on the sea or navigable rivers, etc., or by descent from the sea upon the coast, by persons not holding a commission from an established civilised state; with a and pl., a single act or crime of this kind. b. Physical Geogr. = CAPTURE n. 1b. 2. fig. The appropriation or reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority; in infringement of the rights conferred by a patent or copyright. Oxford English Dictionary Noun: piracy 1. Robbery on the high seas; taking a ship away from the control of those who are legally entitled to it. 2. The act of plagiarising; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own. WordWeb Dictionary and Thesaurus http://www.wordweb.info/ What is commonly meant by software piracy is the unauthorised use of computer software--"the appropriation and reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority; infringement of the rights conferred by a patent or copyright." However, why is the term piracy used? I believe it is to elicit an emotional response from the audience. Piracy (as robbery on the high seas, a much older use) is not the issue, copyright infringement is. I believe that the only reason the term 'piracy' is used is because of the impact it can have. Can Copyright Infringement be Theft? How about "software piracy is theft" (I am, of course, using the generally accepted meaning of piracy to be the infringement of copyright)? Advertisements of this nature have been shown on Australian free-to-air television networks and in Australian cinemas for the past few years.