Use and Respect Copyright - Part 1

Progress Challenge 1: Current legislation

Take a moment to check the current Australian legislation regarding copyright by researching online (a quick internet search will do).

Have any changes to the legislation been made lately?

Did you find any community discussion regarding changes being lobbied? For example, go to choice.com.au to keep an eye on a developing campaign to amend the current copyright legislation to reflect technological change and the way people use content:LINK 4

Your regular design forums and professional associations will also contain helpful material and discussions.

Complete the above challenge and then click LINK 5 to upload.

Answer

The article below is through Choice.com.au, and they are lobbying against the government legislation which they claim will make it possible for internet service providers to 'police' internet use, send you 'education' letters and provide 'rights holders' with your details so they can more easily take legal action. This is all very well and good, but it penalises people who cannot afford good content while failing to address the problem of piracy because it can't address the reasons why they do it it the first place. For instance, why are movies and music so expensive? Or games?

On one hand, while I don't want to penalise people who can't afford good art work (like the stuff I upload), on the other, I don't want anyone copying my stuff without informing me or failing to correctly attribute the work to my name, or illegally downloading stuff that I have put my heart and soul into creating (including movies and videos that I may have made).

Another piece of legislation that Australians want changed is 'geo-blocking' (or the process whereby non-US citizens are charged more when they buy things overseas than US citizens or people who don't have a US credit card or address), and one way they do this is to use Copyright and Licensing restrictions to inflate the prices for the same product, depending on where you are in the world.