Trawling the web in search of copyright knowledge, as one does from time to time, I came across an interesting post on the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) site. CAL collects funds under the statutory licence scheme that is provided in the Australian Copyright Act and, according to its website, there are a number of corporations and individuals who are missing out on their moolah. Could you be one of them? Head here to find out.

Sadly this blogger is not in the money, but there are some interesting names on the lists. Some make perfect sense - for example, Australian artist Pro Hart. Then there are the numerous estates who are owed money, including the estate of Ernest Hemingway, AA Milne, and Australian architect Harry Seidler. Then there are the more unusual 'publishers' -for example, eBay Australia & New Zealand and Air Caledonie International. I'm not sure what Air Caledonie has published or who's reproduced it, but I want to go to New Caledonia after visiting that website.

Labels: catherine, licensing

Regular readers will know of my interest in all-things-Crown-copyright, so I have come out of my blogging hiatus* to let you all know that last week argument in the appeal of Copyright Agency Limited v State of New South Wales was heard before five members of the High Court (Gleeson CJ, Gummow, Heydon, Crennan, and Kiefel JJ). As you may recall, this case considers whether the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) can collect money from the NSW Government for the use of certain copyright-protected surveyor plans. The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia found that CAL could not collect on these plans on the basis an implied licence exists, permitting the NSW Government to do everything it needs to in relation to the plans, as dictated by statute.

A transcript for the hearing can be found on AustLII here. I will get some comments up within the next week.


* Self-imposed in a desperate attempt to actually write my thesis, and I am pleased to report that it's going well, in case my supervisors are reading this.

Labels: catherine, Crown copyright

Lawrence Lessig's seminal work The Future of Ideas has now been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence and can be freely downloaded off the Internet. Read more on Lessig's blog here or download the book here.

This completes what I will describe as Lessig's trilogy in four parts: all four of his books (Code and Other Laws of Cybersapce, Code v 2.0, The Future of Ideas and Free Culture) are now available under various Creative Commons licences.

Labels: books, catherine, lessig

Sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day to analyse the Australian public domain and keep you, our loyal readers, informed about all the developments in Australian IP policy and scholarship. This is particularly the last case over the last week when Australia has just had a Federal election that has brought about a complete change of government. So, without further adieu, here is a list of resources and developments that you might be interested in:

1. The launch of Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand licences - see more on the CC-ANZ website here and CC-AU Jessica Coates's blogpost about the launch here.


2. The launch of "Legal Aspects of Web 2.0 Activities: Management of Legal Risk Associated with Use of YouTube, MySpace and Second Life", a report written by QUT researchers Jessica Coates, Nic Suzor and Dr Anne Fitzgerald. The report can be accessed here and more information found on the CC-AU website here. The report considers generals issues created by these social networking sites but also specific issues created in each case.
   
3. As per my earlier post on this case, the High Court has granted special leave to appeal in the case of Copyright Agency Limited v State of New South Wales (see it confirmed on the HCA website here and at AustLII here.) The appeal is concerned with the issue of the implied licence considered by in the Federal Court decision.

Expect more updates over the next few days.

Labels: catherine

This just in: Jose Duarte, who filmed The Simpsons Movie on his mobile phone and uploaded it onto the Internet, has been convicted and fined $1000 by Magistrate Pat O'Shane at the Downing Centre Local Court (See Housemate Abi's previous post on the case here). According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Duarte's lawyer argued that his client "had 'the sophistication of a dead fish', when it came to uploading the footage on to the internet." Indeed. Commonwealth lawyers argued, however, that "the potential costs for the film's owners was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars".

It doesn't appear that anything detailed, beyond the report in the Sydney Morning Herald, is up on the Internet about this case yet. More to come as more details emerge.

Labels: cases, catherine, infringement

This is one for any international readers...or, more, specifically, UK readers. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced that a review will be conducted into the United Kingdom National Archives. The review will consider the appropriateness of the time when records become available (this is 30 years after 'an event', which is the same here in Australia) and whether this period should be decreased. More can be found at the National Archives news page here.

Archival research is sometimes overlooked in scholarship, but it's clear that there is a wealth of information in these vaults (I personally imagine them to look something like the Hall of Prophecies from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, although with books in place of orbs). I've been spending a lot of time on archival websites lately - the National Archives of Australia has a fantastic feature called RecordSearch that allows you to find archival documents and narrow down your search. The UK National Archives also has an excellent website - I started off planning to research Crown copyright in the UK and ended up reading perhaps a bit more than I should have about records concerning Jack the Ripper. Not for the faint-hearted researcher. Archival research is therefore a bit like spending a few hours of Wikipedia: you end up far, far away from where you started.

Benedict Atkinson's new book The True History of Copyright (review coming!) contains a lot of archival research and my own work will include this type of research. It's interesting that even though we have truly entered the age of 'digital copyright' there is still so much that we can learn from materials about history and policy from 100 years ago. Accessing and considering these types of materials can broaden both discussions about issues and the commons as well: yet another way for dwarves to stand on the shoulders of giants!

Labels: catherine, research

There's a new song out on the airwaves by UK electro-pop act Groove Armada where a girl, after breaking up with her boyfriend, is out driving and sings that she's got "Prince singing hot things at me, I know every line." (The song is "Song 4 Mutya") However, Prince fans may find themselves singing a different tune soon.


According to a report in today's online Sydney Morning Herald, Prince "has threatened to sue thousands of his biggest fans for breach of copyright, provoking an angry backlash and claims of censorship." (See the report here) Targeted items include photos, CD covers and lyrics (our title is clearly for the purposes of parody and satire, just so we're clear). This follows the singer's decision last year to hire an Internet company to seek the removal of 2000 videos featuring his songs from YouTube, including one of a baby dancing to his track Let's Go Crazy (obviously inspired by the Dancing Baby from Ally McBeal, I'm sure). However, it's also noted that Prince has done a few things in recent years with the aim of removing the middleman and bringing himself closer to fans, including distributing his CDs with newspapers. So it seems the digital revolution is still causing major problems in the music industry.

Author's Note: This is a bit of a different post - just about copyright and not so much about the commons! We apologise for our lack of posting lately and regular non-Prince related posts will appear soon!

Labels: catherine, infringement

On Monday Housemate Abi and I attended the "Increasing Consumers Voice in Intellectual Property Policy" Consumers International World Congress Side Event at the Vibe Hotel in North Sydney (see Abi's previous post with the details here.) Speakers were there from all parts of the globe, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Chile, Indonesia and the Netherlands. You can read more about the day here at the CHOICE Voice blog on the World Congress and there are links to many of the Powerpoint presentations delivered on the day.

The presentations were fascinating - when I think about consumer issues in intellectual property law, my mind instantly jumps to whether we can legally use our digital technologies in the ways that we want to - but the many issues covered at this event served as a reminder that intellectual property laws affect consumers in very different ways around the world.

Two particular presentations stand out in my mind as illustrative of this. First, Dr. Jiraporn Limpananont from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), delivered an excellent presentation on access to medicines and campaigning against drug patents in Thailand. The public were incredibly involved in these campaigns and Dr. Limpananont's presentation features photographs of the many community demonstrations aimed at reforming this system. (See the presentation here).

Second, Indrani Thuraisingham from the Kuala Lumpur branch of Consumers International discussed the issues of DRM in academic journals. CIKL purchased a number of academic journal articles and ebooks online and studied the access, use and download restrictions that came with each, with very interesting - and startling - results. With the average price of an article being $US25, this equated to:

• 0.69% of the monthly income of a US citizen
  
• 41.67% of the monthly income of an individual in India


• 75.95% of the monthly income of an individual in Cambodia

(From Ms. Thuraisingham's slide show, available here)

Take a look at the presentations available on the CHOICE Voice site - many of the presentations contain similarly startling statistics, with the overall theme being that there needs to be a definite increase in consumer voices in intellectual property. Those with a voice that can be heard need to speak up!

Labels: catherine, conferences

Ben Atkinson, formerly of the NSW Attorney General's Department, has a new book to be released in November, titled 'The True History of Copyright: The Australian Experience 1905-2005'. The Sydney University Press site on the book states that "The purpose of this book is to examine the historical record - concentrating on the development of copyright law in Australia - to determine the truth of modern assumptions about the origins and function of copyright law." I'll post a book review after it becomes available.

There aren't many books focusing on the history of Australian copyright, so this book will be a welcome addition to the literature. 2007 is shaping up to be a very good year for copyright scholarship, both in Australia and internationally.

Details: Benedict Atkinson, "The True History of Copyright: The Australian Experience 1905-2005", 2007, Sydney University Press, ISBN: 9781920898458. Introduction by Brian Fitzgerald. Find out more and pre-order here.

Labels: books, catherine

The Australian public is going to the polls on 24th November to elect members of our Federal Parliament (the one that sits in Canberra, is currently led by John Howard, and is constantly under siege from members of The Chaser's War on Everything). The calling of the election was a long time coming. Even though we knew that an election would have to take place soon (so says the Constitution), Prime Minister John Howard took his time in announcing the exact date. But now, in the words of one Federal House of Representatives candidate, it's "game on". A normal part of an election process, particularly at such a high level of government, is the holding of debates between party leaders. In Australia, debate is already under way as to who, when, and how these debates should take place.

House of Commons friend and ANU academic Dr. Matthew Rimmer has called for Australia to follow the lead of US Democrats presidential candidate hopeful Barack Obama and allow these debates to be made "freely accessible across all media and technology platforms" (See the ANU Press Release here). In the United States, Obama suggested that the US Democrat debates be either placed in the public domain or licensed under a Creative Commons licence.

Dr Rimmer has said that

"Whichever television networks or internet media end up broadcasting the federal
election debates, it’s important to the health of our democracy that people are
free to capture and distribute the dialogue of our prospective leaders so that
they can make a more informed decision."

The House of Commons strongly supports Dr. Rimmer's suggestion. It is an unusual one in an Australian context - in the United States, there is no copyright in works produced by the US government and thus there is at least a precedent for this type of action. There is also the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech, which arguably means that this type of content gains even greater significance. However, there has been a shift in this campaign to Australian political parties embracing all that the digital revolution has to offer (just type 'Kevin07' into Google, for example). A pledge by the parties to make debate materials freely available and accessible via sites such as YouTube would be both a positive and definite step for Australian democracy in the digital age.

The logisitics of such a proposition has also caused much discussion amongst House of Commons housemates. Housemate Ben writes:

"I think election debates should belong to the commons, at least insofar as
complete reproduction is concerned. However, I do see that there are good
reasons not to allow modifications, because they could be used to spread
disinformation at such a crucial time. For these reasons, a licence such as
Creative Commons No Derivatives would be appropriate (as opposed to, say, a
public domain dedication). It's also worth noting that, even under such a
licence, derivatives could be made for the purpose of satire (correct me if I'm
wrong here!), and that could perhaps be both a good and a bad thing (I'm not
sure to what extent you could use the satire exception to spread
disinformation)."

In response, Housemate Abi has agreed (and I concur) that the parody or satire fair dealing exception in the Copyright Act could probably be used to create parodies, although there issue regarding modifications may need to be addressed.

For more information on Dr. Rimmer's proposal, the ANU Press Release can be found here.

Labels: abi, ben, catherine, Creative Commons, open content, parody, youtube

Book Review: 'Intellectual Property: The Many Faces of the Public Domain'
Edited by Charlotte Waelde and Hector MacQueen
(2007, Edward Elgar, UK)

In the growing body of scholarship on the public domain in copyright law, it seems as though many articles contain the same footnote. It will be early on the article or chapter and will feature names that any public domain scholar, from any jurisdiction, will recognise as easily as they would the name ‘George W. Bush’. Those names will include (and, although I’m writing this off the top of my head, this is probably the exact order that these names would appear): David Lange, Jessica Litman, Edward Samuels, Keith Aoki, Yochai Benkler, Lawrence Lessig, James Boyle, Pamela Samuelson. Occasionally there will be some variation: an author will recognise an earlier work, or a work in the middle, and a few names afterwards. My own work usually features such a footnote, although my thesis explores the public domain musings of each of these scholars in greater detail.

The Waelde and MacQueen edited book, Intellectual Property: The Many Faces of Public Domain, does not feature any of these ‘usual suspects’. Instead, the authors of the many chapters in this book contribute to public domain literature with a number of new, non-United States perspectives that undoubtedly ‘enrich’ (to use a term of Pamela Samuelson’s) the growing body of scholarship on this concept. There is no great emphasis on the United States copyright clause or First Amendment here. That is not to underestimate the quality or impact of public domain scholarship on those American issues; in fact, in seeking to explore constitutional aspects of the Australian public domain this literature has been invaluable. However, as many public domain scholars have noted, there are numerous public domains and the various contributors in this edition each construct this concept in very different ways and contexts.

Indeed, the chapters provide numerous perspectives and views of the public domain, ranging from the historical or theoretical, to the much more practical. F. Willem Grosheide’s chapter “In Search of the Public Domain During the Prehistory of Copyright Law” provides an interesting historical introduction to the edition, while in “Copyright’s Public Domain” Ronan Deazley dives head first into the basics of constructing the public domain, and in the tradition of Pamela Samuelson, provides a number of useful illustrations (given the number of issues and constructions that can be raised in public domain literature, I would say that the more illustrations, the better). John Cahir also raises a particularly topical question in his chapter, “The Public Domain: Right or Liberty”: is there a right to the public domain? Such a question and, indeed, many of the issues raised in this book arguably warrant a book/thesis/number of volumes of their own.

Other chapters build on recurring themes in public domain discourse. In his chapter, “The Public Domain and the Creative Author”, Bill Thompson reflects on the public domain, creativity, culture and authorship (and manages to reference Leonardo DiCaprio, Star Trek, The Simpsons, Hamlet and Moby Dick among others in the one chapter- excellent work). Further Johanna Gibson’s chapter “Audiences in Tradition: Traditional Knowledge and the Public Domain” discusses a number of recurring issues regarding the interrelationship between traditional knowledge and the public domain, while also raising the often-neglected question of who constitutes the ‘public’ in these types of discussions.

These are only a sample of chapters in this book; but it should be apparent to the reader that the chapters in Intellectual Property: The Many Faces of the Public Domain encapsulate a number of public domain issues, some new, some recurring. For any public domain or copyright scholar, this is a must-have book; or, even for those who are not so familiar with these issues, the various contributors raise a number of thought-provoking intellectual property issues. I would like to conclude with a quote from Bill Thompson (not regarding Leonardo DiCaprio). He states that (at p. 132):

“The public domain is little understood, rarely defended in the public prints
and under constant attack from those who would have all works of the human
imagination kept under lock and key through a combination of perpetual copyright
and technological protection measures. Even while it persists it is often
hard to determine whether a particular piece of work is in the public domain,
and since the rules differ in different jurisdictions the status of all but the
most obvious – for which read ‘older’ - works must often be considered
questionable.” (citations omitted)

The same is true of the Australian situation. Books such as Intellectual Property: The Many Faces of the Public Domain make us realise these issues, with a view to exploring their implication at a national and international, online and offline, level.

(Next up - a review of 'Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands off my iPod', by Dr. Matthew Rimmer, ANU College of Law)

Labels: book review, catherine

Housemates Abi and Catherine, and project chief investigator Graham Greenleaf have been published in the Journal of World Intellectual Property. They were too modest to post about it themselves, but something has to be said! I mean, if I was published in the Journal of World Artificial Intelligence, well I'd want to tell everyone :) (not that there's a journal called the Journal of World Artificial Intelligence, but that's not the point!).

So without further ado, here's the link: Advance Australia Fair? The Copyright Reform Process.

Now, I'm no legal expert, and I have to admit the article was kind of over my head. But, by way of advertisement, here are some keywords I can pluck out of the paper as relevant:

• Technological protection measures (TPMs)
  
• Digital rights management (DRM)
• The Australia-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA)
• The Digital Agenda Act (forgive me for not citing correctly!)
• The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
  
• The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

Not to mention all the courts and cases that get involved. Anyway, that should be enough to whet your appetite. Get reading it; get citing it ;)

Labels: abi, ben, catherine, legislation, research

I feel as though I should start this blogpost with the Monty Python adage, “and now for something completely different…”.

On Tuesday, the New Zealand Police announced the launch of a new wiki as part of its current review into the 1958 Police Act. The aim of the wiki is to encourage individuals to make suggestions regarding this legislation. On the homepage for the wiki the situation is further explained and it is stated that, “[a]n official Bill is currently being written-up by parliamentary drafters, but in parallel there's an opportunity for others to suggest how a new Policing Act might look by contributing to a wiki Act. It'll be kept open until 1 November 2007, when the results can be fed back into the official law-making process.” So for those who feared that the new New Zealand Policing Act may have featured a few radical provisions (“Police will have no power to arrest individuals on Tuesdays”), it is obvious that the wiki will not be the be-all-end-all for the new Act.

Constituents in a variety of jurisdictions have often had the opportunity to comment on proposed laws, with various degrees of success. For example, in Australia, at a Federal level, a Bill can be released by the Attorney-General’s Department for public comment or a Parliamentary Committee may seek public submissions on issues raised in a Bill. Last year, in the case of the Copyright Amendment Act 2006 (Cth), the Attorney-General’s Department sought comment on the proposed technological protection measure provisions, while the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs conducted a broader inquiry into the overall Bill, prior to its being passed into law.

However, making a public submission to a Bill can be a difficult task. Individuals who have an interest in a Bill but who do not have expert qualifications may be deterred from voicing their opinion. Therefore, a wiki is a very democratic way of allowing individuals to contribute to both the text of laws and the governance of a country (according to a Sydney Morning Herald report on the wiki, NZ Police Superintendent Hamish McCardle has described it as a "new frontier of democracy.") While reading this story I thought back to the many seminal discussions on commons-based peer production by Yochai Benkler, particularly his 2006 book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. I would suggest that what we are seeing in the New Zealand case is the creation of laws by commons-based peer production, albeit without the economic aspect of production.

Despite that, I’m still not convinced as to whether this represents the future of law-making, or its demise.

Hat Tip: Many thanks to my housemate Abi for bringing this story to my attention and her very apt title!

Labels: catherine, wikis

Australian readers may be aware that the 2007 APEC Summit is being held in Sydney this week. APEC stands for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, with 21 nations belonging to this group, including the United States, Russia, China, Thailand, Singapore and, of course, Australia. A number of big names are heading to town for the APEC Summit, including President George W. Bush (who arrives tomorrow for a few days down under prior to the big Economic Leaders’ Meeting this weekend). However, many Sydneysiders aren’t happy with the prospect of APEC. Although workers in the Sydney metropolitan area are being given a public holiday on Friday to keep us all out of the city, a huge wall has been erected around a 5 km area in the central business district, and police have been given additional powers to handle any APEC strife.

Here at the House of Commons, however, we ask the big questions and the question that I wanted answered was how many of the APEC nations have branches of Creative Commons and CC licences? I headed over to the Creative Commons Worldwide page to find out.

The good news? Creative Commons is present is in all but four APEC jurisdictions, albeit in various stages of porting licences. See below for the full details. I have to admit that this copyright-progressiveness makes me feel a bit better about the giant blockade.

Creative Commons “Licensed Jurisdictions”

Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, South Korea, Taiwan, United States

Creative Commons Project Jurisdictions

New Zealand, Philippines

Creative Commons Upcoming Project Jurisdictions

Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam

Creative Commons Not Present

Brunei, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Russia

Author’s Note – If you spot any jurisdictions here where you dispute either the presence or non-presence of Creative Commons, then drop us a comment!

Labels: catherine, Creative Commons

Many readers, whether you like it or not, will be familiar with the "Idol" phenomenon: the reality TV singing competition that catapults a host of young hopefuls into the spotlight and then whittles them down via public vote until one remains singing. In the UK, there's 'Pop Idol', the US 'American Idol' and here in Australia we have 'Australian Idol'.

I have to admit that I do tune in occasionally (no pun intended) and yesterday morning, having missed Oz Idol the night before, I checked the "Australian Idol 2007" Wikipedia page to see which singers had gone through. When I checked, only four names should have been listed - two guys, and two girls. However, 5 names were listed under the "Top 12 Finalists" category, even though only 4 names had officially been announced. The fifth name was Ben McKenzie, a 17 year old from the NSW Central Coast. However, later than day, the name had been removed from this page.

Today, however, the name is back - and Ben McKenzie is indeed an Australian Idol 2007 Top 12 finalist (I have checked this against a credible source: the official Australian Idol website). Is this a case of life (or, more specifically, reality TV) imitating Wikipedia? Or is it not only politicians who will stoop to editing Wikipedia pages, but Idol devotees as well?

Labels: catherine, wikis

In November last year I attended the Creative Commons Australia Industry Forum, "Unlocking the Potential", held at the Queensland University of Technology Creative Industries Precinct in Brisbane. The day involved three distinct forums that explored the application and potential of Creative Commons licences in a variety of contexts: CC and government; CC and open access, education and libraries; and CC, creativity, media & the arts.

The Creative Commons team has just released a very substantial report on the day and its findings, and both the report and further information can be found here.

Labels: catherine, Creative Commons

According to a report in today's Sydney Morning Herald, Facebook is the new way to waste time at work - and it's apparently costing Australian big business big. The article quotes Richard Cullen, from an internet filtering company, who puts the Australian time-wasting cost at about $5 billion per year. Read more here.

Labels: catherine, social networking

Last week Justice Bennett handed down judgment in Nine Network Australia Pty Ltd v IceTV Pty Ltd [2007] FCA 1172. The case dealt with Channel Nine's claim that IceTV infringed its copyright in its television guides. Justice Bennett found that while the guides were protected under the Copyright Act, IceTV were not liable for infringement. The full judgment can be found at AustLII here and I will have a case summary up here soon.

Labels: cases, catherine

Book Review: Andrew Keen, ‘The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy’ (2007)

Andrew Keen has been described by one UK technology journalist as being the possible “Martin Luther” of the Internet counter-reformation. Yet that statement, like the majority of the content in Keen’s recently released book, The Cult of the Amateur, is over-exaggerated. If Keen is to be believed, then the end of culture is nigh and the Internet, Web 2.0, bloggers, noble amateurs, YouTube, Jimmy Wales, MySpace, lonelygirl15, Google, and Wikipedia, are to blame. To Keen, Web 2.0 is a classic example of the “infinite monkey theorem”, where, if you put unlimited monkeys in front of unlimited typewriters, one of the monkeys will eventually produce Hamlet. On the Internet, everyone is a monkey, except, of course, Keen.

Keen ‘confesses’ early on in the book that he pursued the dotcom dream, and that he is “an insider now on the outside who has poured out his cup of Kool-Aid and resigned his membership from the cult” (pp. 11-12). These experiences make him different from the average Internet-user. Over the next 200 pages, Keen provides the reader with colourful, creative, you’ve-probably-heard-them-somewhere-before examples of why Web 2.0 will be the death of creativity and culture. The majority of these examples are, perhaps not surprisingly and disappointingly, United States-focussed. According to Keen, although the Internet has been praised for its democratic underpinnings and the fact that anyone can create their very own Hyde Park soap-box, these features are resulting in the depreciation of the importance and value of ‘experts’ and the impact of traditional media outlets.

I don’t have the time, or the inclination, to tackle everything in The Cult of the Amateur, so I just want to highlight one point. One of the issues that Keen finds most bothersome about Web 2.0 is the fact that individuals are able to remain anonymous, and therefore they will not be held accountable for what they say. Aliases, therefore, are just plain wrong. Keen states that

“Some argue that Web 2.0, and the blogosphere in particular, represents a return
to the vibrant democratic intellectual culture of the eighteen-century London
coffeehouse. But Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and James Boswell didn’t hide
behind aliases by debating one another.” (at p. 80)

This is true, but in a number of other cases, individuals have used aliases, or pen names, and no one has thought the less of them for doing so. George Eliot is a classic example; Mary Ann Evans knew that it was unlikely her novels would be taken seriously if publishers or readers knew she was a women, so she chose to publish her novels under an alias instead. Similarly, Emily Bronte, who penned arguably one of the most important novels in English literature, also wrote under the name Ellis Bell. Keen spends the majority of the novel espousing the traditional means of cultural creation but, until very recently, many women were forced to use an alias in order to be considered the equivalent of their male peers in this dominant system. Further, throughout The Cult of the Amateur, Keen repeatedly refers to the dystopian nightmare that exists in the fictional novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell. But Keen fails to point out that Orwell was in fact an alias, a pen name for Eric Arthur Blair.

It is understandable that, on the Internet, an individual may not feel comfortable publicising their name and therefore chooses to use an alias. It is also a shame that individuals use aliases when they are encouraging non-legitimate conduct (for example, defaming another individual). Most importantly, however, let’s remember that aliases are not an Internet-based phenomenon.

There is more that could be said about The Cult of the Amateur: somebody needs to defend Jimmy Wales, and explain why people lie about their age offline too, just like lonelygirl15. However, in conclusion, if you don’t like what Keen is saying about your web, Web 2.0, don’t get mad: get blogging. One day one of us bloggers is bound to stumble into saying something brilliant! Now, where have Pigsy and Sandy gone....?

Labels: book review, catherine

Lenovo, the world's no. 3 computer maker (although on Wikipedia it says it's the no. 4 maker, but I digress), has announced that it will be releasing a line of Linux-based personal computers. Read more in the Sydney Morning Herald report here.

Labels: catherine, free software, open source

I've been absent from the blogosphere for a little while as a I toiled away at my thesis and as more and more chapter deadlines loom this will sadly continue to be the case (although those readers who remember my Wikipedia blogging obsession may be happy about that development). But in other news...

On the Creative Commons blog, Mike Linksvayer has some interesting comments on a new paper, "Preliminary Thoughts on Copyright Reform" by renowned copyright scholar Pamela Samuelson, and the title for this post comes from Samuelson's paper (at p. 7). As Samuelson rightly notes, copyright law is becoming far too long, confusing, irrelevant and outdated, to the point where "virtually every week a new technology issue emerges, presenting questions that existing copyright rules cannot easily answer" (at p. 1).

Samuelson proposes a model law for a new United States Copyright Act, but also rightly notes that major copyright reform in the United States is highly unlikely to happen any time soon, what with the Iraq war, tax reform, global warming etc being more pressing for the US Congress than copyright issues. This is true, although, for example, extraditing individuals for copyright infringement does have wider ramifications for civil liberties, as readers familiar with the case of Hew Griffiths know.

About a fortnight ago now, the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre and Linux Australia co-hosted a Law Tech Talk, given by Maureen O'Sullivan. As Abi reported earlier here, Maureen is from the University of Ireland, Galway, and she gave an excellent presentation titled "The Democratic Deficit in Copyright Law: A Legislative Proposal." Maureen's talk centred on the introduction of a Free Software Act (see version 4 of the Act in SCRIPT-ed here) which would operate to protect free software and free/open source software licences.

So it seems that concurrent to the increase in voluntary licensing practices to release copyright content, there is also an growing push towards legislative change as well, either tackling the bulk of copyright law in one go, as Samuelson has suggested, or by an amending act, as O'Sullivan has proposed. Sadly, however, in an Australian context, legislative copyright reform appears to be a long way off. If anything, as shown by the Copyright Amendment Act 2006, our copyright law will only continue to grow in length and bulk, rather than be substantially reformed.

On a final note, we have a tradition here at the House of Commons of publishing the most spot-on comments made about copyright law (remember Senator Andrew Bartlett's "congealed wobbling blob"?) So, finally, here's Samuelson's take: "...the current statutory framework is akin to an obese Frankensteinian monster" (at p. 6).

Not only is that very apt, but it also managed to integrate a reference to a public domain character as well. Nicely done!

Labels: catherine, free software, legislation, open source

House of Commons readers will know of the Virgin Australia/Creative Commons images controversy that I have blogged about previously (see ad campaign here). There were plenty of other pictures that Virgin could have used in its ad campaign, for example, why didn't Virgin just use pictures of cats (thereby avoiding issues of model releases, defamation, privacy etc) and, in the great tradition of LOLCATS, build a campaign around that? There are hundreds of thousands of CC licensed cat photos on Flickr so we decided to help Virgin out with this image based on their ad "multi tasking is like swordfighting, it always ends in tears".

Labels: abi, catherine, Fun, lolcats

Some readers will be aware of the recent death of United States pro wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy and their son Daniel. Police concluded that the deaths were a murder-suicide: Benoit killed his wife and child and then himself. However, this tragedy has been accompanied by an eerie twist: the fact that the death of Benoit’s wife was added to Benoit’s Wikipedia page 14 ½ hours prior to the bodies being discovered by local authorities. The Wikipedia angle was reported about Thursday-Friday of last week but rather than blogging and speculating about how this actually happened, I wanted to wait to see, well, what actually happened.

An anonymous individual posted on Benoit’s Wikipedia page that he was replaced by another wrestler, Johnny Nitro, for a championship wrestling event as Benoit was unable to attend the event “due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.” A Wikipedia moderator took the post down an hour later on the basis that the statement needed a reliable source. A second anonymous individual then added to the site that “several pro wrestling websites” attributed Benoit’s failure to attend the event to Nancy’s death. This second post was made by an individual in Australia. The second post was then removed by Wikipedia editors on the basis that “several pro wrestling websites” was not reliable. When it was revealed that Benoit, his wife and son had died, Wikipedia editors put the puzzle together and contacted authorities. (see the Sydney Morning Herald report here).

After revealing that they were responsible for the first post, the anonymous individual said that they had made the changes to Benoit’s Wikipedia page on the basis of a number of rumours floating around the Internet. Further, they stated that

"I posted the comment we are all talking about and I am here to explain that it
was A HUGE COINCIDENCE and nothing more…
I was beyond wrong for posting wrongful information, and I am sorry to everyone for this ... I just posted something that was at that time a piece of wrong unsourced information that is typical on wikipedia, as it is done all the time.” (Jano Gibson, “Benoit Mystery’s Wiki Twist: I Did It”, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 June 2007)

So does saying that “I just posted something that was at that time a piece of wrong unsourced information that is typical on Wikipedia, as it is done all the time” make it all right then? No, for a number of reasons. First, while editing Wikipedia has become all the rage, what is the rush in posting the death of an individual before it’s actually been confirmed? Even if this was based on ‘rumours’ – which in this case ended up being somewhat true – I’m not sure of the harm in waiting for a death to be confirmed by more reliable sources before adding it the Wikipedia page. After the Sinbad incident, chances are that Jimmy Wales wouldn’t mind Wikipedia not being updated for a few hours in order to confirm that an individual in question is actually deceased. Second, if the individual is not a prankster and does in fact care about the information on Wikipedia, then surely they should not base their posts on unsubstantiated rumours and seek to dispel the misconception that Wikipedia is the place you go to post inaccurate information.

It's a shame that in such tragic circumstances this is the story that is filling the headlines.

Labels: catherine, wikis

It seems to be the time for leaders of Houses of Commons to be moving on. British PM Tony Blair has just stepped down, with Gordon Brown taking over as the leader of the UK House of Commons (you know, the real one). However, this House of Commons would like to add its voice to the chorus of "thanks for everything" to one of the leaders of the free culture movement, Lawrence Lessig, as he shifts direction. Lessig has blogged about his change of direction here, and you can read the (currently) 142 comments that are already attached to that post if time permits. This House of Commons would probably not be in existence if it was not for the inspirational work of Lessig and we will follow the next stage of his career with a very keen eye (what Tony Blair does next is probably less relevant for the purposes of this blog, sorry).

Labels: catherine, Creative Commons

Some readers may be aware of my interest in all-things-Crown copyright, so when the Full Federal Court of Australia handed down its decision in one of the very few Australian cases on Crown copyright a few weeks ago, I knew that I should get blogging. I realise that just saying the words 'Crown copyright' means that I may have lost some readers entirely, so let's go back to basics...

What's Crown copyright? Crown copyright is essentially government-owned copyright. This means that the government owns the copyright in those particular works, like a company might own copyright, or I own copyright in this blogpost. In addition to general works, governments also own copyright in legislation and case law that is produced by the Parliament or judiciary in that particular jurisdiction. Pursuant to Division 1 Part VII of the Copyright Act, Crown copyright subsists in:

• works "made by, or under the direction or control of the Commonwealth or a State" (section 176)
  
• works first published in Australia if this first publication is by, or under the direction or control of, the Commonwealth or a State (section 177)


• sound recordings and cinematograph films "made by, or under the direction or control of the Commonwealth or a State" (section 178)


• in addition to these provisions, the Crown owns any copyright materials produced by its employees under the general employment provision contained in the Copyright Act, subsection 35(6).

In 2005, the now-dissolved Copyright Law Review Committee released a report on the Australian Crown copyright provisions and made a number of significant recommendations, including the repeal of sections 176-178 and that copyright in primary legal materials (and a number of other government documents, for example, certain Committee reports) be abolished. The Federal Government is yet to reply to the recommendations made by the Committee.

Is Crown copyright available everywhere? Many countries do not have Crown or government copyright: for example, in the United States, "copyright protection...is not available any work of the United States Government" (17 U.S.C section 105). This means that all government produced works, legislation, case law etc is technically in the public domain (with some scholars arguing that, because of this fact, the 'public domain' takes on an additional significance, because copyright law cannot impede the use and wider reuse of these materials.)

What was CAL v State of New South Wales [2007] FCAFC 80 about? In two words: surveyor plans. Pursuant to a number of NSW statutes, survey plans have to follow certain requirements in order to be registered in NSW. These survey plans are also reproduced for certain purposes by the NSW Government and stored in a database. CAL went to the Copyright Tribunal seeking a determination pursuant to sections 183 and 183A of the Copyright Act as to the amount of royalties that the NSW Government should have to pay to the copyright owners for use of particular plans. However, the State of NSW argued that it was the copyright owner under sections 176 (the plans were made under its direction or control) and 177 (it was the first to publish the plans, therefore, under this section, it owned the copyright). The case was referred to the Federal Court of Australia, where the Full Bench made a determination.

What did the Court find about Crown copyright? The Federal Court found that Crown copyright did not subsist in the survey plans in question under either section 176 and 177. Therefore, the Crown did not own the copyright in these particular plans.

Does that mean the State of NSW lost? The Court found that while Crown copyright did not subsist in the plans, the State was entitled to a licence, beyond what was permitted under section 183 of the Copyright Act, allowing it reproduce and communicate the plan in question to the public. The Court found that the “State is licensed to do everything that, under the statutory and regulatory framework that governs registered plans, the State is obliged or authorised to do with or in relation to registered plans.” (at 158).

What was interesting about the case? To me, the glaring omission was the fact that the court did not discuss the recommendation of the CLRC in its final Crown Copyright report that sections 176 and 177 actually be repealed. There are two issues here. First, it is understandable that the Court may have been reluctant to engage in any discussion of whether the Federal Government should or should not repeal these provisions given that the Government is yet to respond to the review. Second, however, the Court did not even mention the fact that the CLRC had conducted a review into Crown copyright and made a recommendation regarding these provisions. While some may consider that irrelevant to the current point at hand, it seems to me that if you are discussing provisions of the Copyright Act that might not be around in a year, it may be worth mentioning that fact.

Will the decision be appealed? According to this CAL press release, "CAL is considering the decision and will decide on our next move in the next few weeks." Let's all chant softly, "High Court! High Court! High Court!"

How do you know all this?
Copyright Agency Limited v State of New South Wales [2007] FCAFC 80 (5 June 2007)
"Court decides surveyors own copyright in maps and plans", CAL News Release.
Catherine Bond, "Reconciling Crown Copyright and Reuse of Government Information: An Analysis of the CLRC Crown Copyright Review", (2007) 12 Media & Arts Law Review (forthcoming), available on SSRN as part of the UNSW Faculty of Law Research Series here.

Labels: cases, catherine, Crown copyright

A few weeks ago Catherine and Abi went to Canberra to attend the ANU College of Law 'Outlaws' Postgraduate Research Conference. Before we left we warned you, our kind readers, that blogging would be temporarily suspended and promised to include some photos that captured 'the essence' of Canberra (see post here). And here's a few to get you started...


We have recently discovered that this is the National Carillon (excellent photography by Catherine Bond).


Catherine was keen to get a new job at the High Court but was told by a security guard that the position of Chief Justice was not yet available (but he took her name for future reference - or possibly - to keep her out in the future).


Finally, as you can tell by the expression on Abi's face- Canberra can be downright joyful (despite the cold)!

If anybody feels that our photos do not truly reflect the essence of Canberra, Matthew Rimmer has kindly suggested the following places:

• The Telstra Tower
• National Museum of Canberra
• The Tuggeranong Hyperdome

After this post however we may not be allowed to leave the House of Commons for some time - so we hope that one day we will be able to visit these sites...

(Pictured: "Cath's shot of the Carillon", "Cath at the High Court" and "Joyful Abi", Catherine Bond, Pictures available under either a AEShareNet license or Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)

Labels: abi, catherine, Fun

Hew Griffiths has been sentenced to 51 months in jail for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. According to this report on Ninemsn, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Chuck Rosenberg has warned that "for those inclined to steal Intellectual Property here [the United States], or from halfway around the world, they are on notice that we can and will reach them." More on this over the next few days.

Update: Additional news about the story is starting to hit the mainstream media. According to a Sydney Morning Herald report, US District Court Judge Claude M Hilton took account of the fact that Griffiths served 3 years in Australian prisons, so he will only seve 15 more months (in a United States prison). This puts to rest fears that Griffiths had expressed to his father that the judge would not take into account those three years served in jail prior to his extradition to Virginia (see those here).

It's been quite interesting actually to see how our local news media handled the story. Just after the sentence was announced the Sydney Morning Herald picked up this AFP story about the case, titled "Briton sentenced to 51 months prison in US for internet piracy." Griffiths is in fact British, having never gained Australian citizenship after arriving in Australia aged 7. Both the mainstream Sydney Sunday newspapers, The Sun-Herald and the Sunday Telegraph picked up the story with the Sun-Herald story reproduced on the Sydney Morning Herald site here. So the case has been getting coverage, although perhaps not as much as might be expected, given that this was a case involving 1) extradition to the United States and 2) jail sentences for copyright infringement.

Labels: catherine

Last year the House of Commons housemates took part in Software Freedom Day 2006, which, as the name suggests, is a day dedicated to the celebration of software freedom and the promotion of all things free and open source software. This year Software Freedom Day will be held on Saturday 15th September and for those interested in finding out more - either as a participant or attendee - see the Software Freedom Day 2007 page here.

83 teams worldwide have already registered, in places including our hometown of Sydney (with the team headed up by Software Freedom International President and House of Commons friend Pia Waugh), Nigeria, Mexico, Peru, Italy, Scotland and the United States (just to name a few - and with the deadline to register not until 31 July expect that list of locations to grow!)

Labels: catherine, free software, open source

I know that many readers have been following the Hew Griffiths case, both via this blog and the mainstream media (see our previous posts here and here). For those readers unfamiliar with the case, Griffiths was arrested at his home in New South Wales in 2004 and extradited to the United States for criminal copyright infringement. Under the name 'Bandido' Griffiths was "the brains behind the international counterfeit software ring called DrinkOrDie." (from The Sun-Herald here). Griffiths was one of the first extraditions for intellectual property infringement.

According to reports in The Sun-Herald yesterday, Griffiths will definitely be sentenced this Friday. Further, it is also reported that there has been a plea bargain, which means Griffiths may/will get a reduced sentence. If you are interested in the Griffiths case, we will have a fuller discussion of the case when his sentence is handed down.

Update: Griffiths is also discussed in the context of extradition of individuals by the United States in a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece by Mark Coultan. As Coultan notes, the Griffiths case "is trumpeted as a victory for US authorities battling software pirates around the globe but it has raised concerns about the reach of American law and the Australian Government's penchant for allowing the US to deal with Australian citizens." Read more here.