It’s out! Recommendation seventeen is choice: That the definition of TPM in section 10 of the Act be amended so as to accord with the interpretation favoured by Sackville J in Stevens, at first instance. That the permitted purposes in section 116A (3) be amended so as to clearly allow any supply or use of […]
From my email today: Thank you for your interest in the Committee’s inquiry into the Australia USA Free Trade Agreement your comments are appreciated and will be formally acknowledged in due course. Fran Wilson Office Administrator Joint Standing Committee on Treaties Sweet. In other news, the JSCT public hearings start their Oz tour on Monday, […]
So, Mary Gardiner, civic-minded lady she is, mentioned that she was going to have a go at making a submission to the senate on the FTA and it’s effect on Linux and free software and that she’d probably put whatever she came up with online. Michael Davies replied that You aren’t allowed to make your […]
The Creative Commons has come down under. They’re developing some new licenses to address Australian law a little better, and make folks doing free works just that little bit better protected.
If we’re ever going to do anything about the problems various copyright laws and patents cause us, we have to start sometime. Linux Australia is starting now, and focussing on the Australia/United States Free Trade Agreement. They have a page full of information up at http://www.linux.org.au/fta/. If you’re an Australian, you’ll be affected by these […]
So, since Lessig has commented on the Allen Report, I thought I might too. They mostly have an interesting view on things, but there are two particular claims that stand out as being, well, delusional. In section 4.1, starting on page 26, the report makes the argument that the increased incentives provided by copyright extension […]
Hey, there’s my submission! How bizarre though, that they seem to have printed out the (126kB) PDF that I sent them, then scanned it back in as a new (906kB) PDF. Arguably it makes sense to make sure that people looking at the website are getting exactly what the review are reading, but even so. […]
…gets expected results. UPDATE 2003/09/27: Where are my manners? Hat tip: Kim Weatherall. UPDATE 2003/10/24: Hey, and a month later slashdot catches up! Advantage: Weatherall.
Matthew Hall, who’s running the Digital Agenda review at Phillips Fox, presented this paper (doc format) in New Zealand earlier this month, which discusses some of the findings of the review so far. Some excerpts: Presently, no economic data supporting the additional costs that are being or are likely to be incurred or that demonstrate […]
Tim Lister of the south Sydney Greens attended the Sydney forum, and posted a summary. An excerpt: One rebel, the chap who built the modchip that Sony got exercised about, had a good time denigrating the illogicality of the legal system, that made it illegal to modify legal hardware that he legally owned to play […]
A number of people have already made submissions: Deacons (TPM measures insufficiently effective) Stevens (the guy being sued by Sony for modchipping Playstations) Green (got ripped off by product activation) Van Emmerik (reverse engineer) International Disc Duplicating Association (IDDA) (broader statutory licensing) Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA) (various topics) (Links repeated here since the Phillips Fox […]
robochan writes “According to this report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Chief Operating Officer of Symantec, John Schwarz, was quoted as ‘calling for laws to make it a criminal offense to share information and tools online which could be used by malicious hackers and virus writers.’ This article takes a look at the negative affects […]
One of the fundamental properties of digital content is that the content ceases to exist if you don’t make copies. You can’t view it (that means making a copy onto the screen from what was on disk or the network), you often can’t transfer it (that involves making a copy on someone else’s hard disk, […]
Volokh proposes an interesting hypothetical to gain a better understanding of property rights over ideas, Solum replies and the debate continues.
dbs on what to do with orphaned code. Excerpt: When a company is deregistered in Australia, its property at deregistration vests in ASIC: Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s 601AD. ASIC may deal with the property as it sees fit: Corporations Act s 601AE. I think it would be a neat idea if computer software that […]