Digital Technology for Digital Living.
May 11, 2005
Government to extend “fair use” copyright
The Federal Government is calling for submissions from the public on extending the “fair use” exceptions in the Copyright Act.
The What?
Let’s put it this way: Say you record a show on your VCR to copy it later or record songs from a CD onto an MP3 player. In both cases, you are technically breaking the law in Australia. The US and other contries have exemptions for things like time shifting TV programs and copying to other media for personal use.
So, the government is having a look at this with a view to expanding our “fair use” rights. They are accepting public submissions on the issue, so if you want to make your opinion clear, read the Issues Paper and make some comments to the government.
See the Attorney General’s Media Release as well.
And what do you think should be fair use? Let’s have a discussion here in the comments.
Graeme | Comments (2) | General, PVRgadgets,gadget,gadgets shop, latest gadgets, new gadgets
Breaking news- the much hated Broadcast Flag has been struck down in the USA. The Broadcast Flag would have eliminated the ability of consumer to use their “fair use” rights in the USA to record and time-shift TV programs, and would no doubt have followed here in Oz as part of the so-called Free Trade Agreement.
Of course, as Australian citizens don’t (yet?) have any fair use rights, we’d hardly miss them at all.
I think that you should be able to copy a cd that you brought onto another medium for your own personal use. Becouse you brought that cd to listen to if i wanted to buy a licence saying i cant do xyz with it then i would of got a piece of paper.