I’m always looking for information about copyright. How it protects the rights of the authors/creators of a work and how encouraging people to do the “right thing” can be achieved.
I think the next iteration of the Copyright Act in Australia could well prove a bit more challenging than my poor understanding of it all can cope with. Especially when those with obviously more understanding of it seem to be having difficulty working out how it is supposed to be effective.
I have been reading Weatherall’s Law: IP in the land of Oz (and more)
http://weatherall.blogspot.com/ (and others on the same topic) for a few weeks now, and it just makes me feel more confused as to the purpose of the new law - apart from the compliance aspect of current trade agreements.
How will the proposed criminal penalties affect how we use all this new technology in our libraries? Will it affect public libraries in different ways to educational libraries? I have a suspicion that this new copyright legislation in its current form could well prove challenging in how librarians can support/use some of the newer technologies.
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November 10, 2006 at 13:04
Hi Alethea! Nice to see you posting here
Thanks for this post, which reminds me that I want to go and catch up with the copyright person here at MPOW to see where the new legislation’s at.
This Online Opinion article summarises the implications of the amendments. Of particular concern (to me anyway) are the changes to the fair dealing and fair use provisions: “… the new provisions actually tighten Australia’s existing fair dealing provisions for research and study in relation to the reproduction of literary, dramatic and musical works, taking away the flexible provisions that currently allow researchers to copy material in ways that are “fair” and replacing them with strict rules that limit copying of most hardcopy and electronic documents only to specific amounts. One page more than this amount, no matter how obscure or difficult the book is to obtain, and you risk liability.” (under the User rights and liabilities section of the article.)