Electronic Frontiers Australia today welcomed the release of the Government's Internet filtering report but predicted that the debate is far from over.

"There are few surprises in this document," said EFA spokesperson Colin Jacobs. "Given the pilot's modest goals, it was designed from the beginning to pass. Although it may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important - exactly what will be blocked, who will decide, and why is it being attempted in the first place?"

The report found that generally, ISPs were able to block a government-provided blacklist of several thousand web sites without a major impact on service levels. It also found that circumvention was trivial for motivated users, calling the effectiveness of the proposal into question.

The report indicated that there were costs associated with filtering, which would hit smaller ISPs the hardest. The expected costs for Australian Internet users were not addressed in the report, nor were other alternatives such as increasing support for home-based filters. Although several ISPs also tested filtering beyond the government blacklist, the report finds they were only 84% accurate in the best case.

It's not unexpected that the censorship proved technically possible. EFA notes that, since the election, the government's "cyber-safety" plan has shifted away from providing tools to shield minors on the web to a black list of "almost exclusively RC (Refused Classification)" content aimed at adults.

"The Government knows this plan will not help Australian kids, nor will it aid in the policing of prohibited material. Given the problems in maintaining a secret blacklist and deciding what goes on it, we're at a loss to explain the Minister's enthusiasm for this proposal," said Jacobs.

"We'll be interested to see how the Internet service providers respond. We know they are critical of having such intrusive Government interference in their networks," he added.

Although the minister has hailed the pilot a success, many concerns about the proposal remain ignored. Neither draft legislation nor a comprehensive policy document have yet been released to the Australian public, though legislation is expected in 2010.

"Successful technology isn't necessarily successful policy. We're yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help, and why it is worth spending so much taxpayers' money on."

– Ends –

Background:

• Internet Service Provider (ISP) Content Filtering Pilot Report
• EFA’s No Clean Feed campaign

About EFA:

Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) is a non-profit national
organisation representing Internet users concerned with on-line
rights and freedoms. EFA was established in 1994, is independent
of government and commerce, and is funded by membership subscriptions
and donations from individuals and organisations with an altruistic
interest in promoting online civil liberties.

Media Contacts:

Mr Colin Jacobs
EFA Vice-Chair
Phone: 0402 631 955
Email: cjacobs at efa.org.au

Mr Geordie Guy
EFA Board Member
Phone: 0415 797 142
Email: gguy at efa.org.au

The Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department has finally released the public consultation paper on the R18+ classification of computer games.

This marks the next stage in the campaign for an R18+ rating. We will be working with AusGamers to prepare a submission that accurately and persuasively addresses the civil liberties concerns of Australian gamers. If you think you can help, please join our discussion list or contact me with suggestions.

Starting Thursday 10 December, the Department of Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) will be holding a two day conference on the future of broadband policy in Australia.

A number of local forums are being run in conjunction with the Sydney-based event. Check them out in the following locations:

• Parramatta
• Melbourne
• Brisbane

The main conference and each of the local events seem quite interesting, and we encourage anyone interested in the future of communications policy in Australia to go along, learn something, and make your voice heard.

I spoke on Sunrise this morning about Joel Tenenbaum's case in the US; a young university student who will now pay around three quarters of a million Australian dollars in damages to four record labels after a judge upheld a jury decision that could've maxed out at $4.5m USD.

Joel's case is terrifying, only the second person in the United States to stand up to the record labels' campaign of suing their customers for copyright infringement under the particularly pointy US copyright laws.  Most people who have had action brought against them have settled out of court under the threat of galactic damages and legal fees for what amounts to copying songs for free when they should have paid $0.99 for them.

What's particularly unique about this case is the way Joel chose to defend, unfortunately the judge found that the way he and his legal team - headed by a Harvard Law School professor - didn't act with sufficient respect during the proceedings to have his particularly broad defence listened to.  Joel didn't argue that he didn't do it, or that he didn't do enough to warrant this sort of trouble, he instead tried to argue that each song that he downloaded was too insignificant to be considered an act of copyright infringement - a "fair use" defence.   This hasn't flown, at least in part due to Joel's insistence on filing silly motions like trying to have the case televised, and it unfortunately sets a precedent that of the two cases that have gone to trial in the US, both have ended with astronomical damages for the defendant.

What's this mean for Australia though?  We don't have these same laws, right?  Well not yet we don't.  Our latest round of copyright law changes were as a result of a free trade agreement with the United States, extending copyright terms from 50 to 70 years after the author's demise and polishing a bunch of other areas of our laws.  In order to have access to free trade with the US, a condition is that we make our copyright laws as nasty as theirs and a new round of negotiations on this issue are due to be completed next year with the first discussions being held in secret in Morocco (this is the 'ACTA' agreement).  It's not unreasonable to think that down the track, our habit of copying United States legislation will mean that an Australian family will be mortgaging their house to cover a $750,000 fine for downloading a few songs.

Joel's behaviour wasn't great, faced with a perplexing 30km/h speed limit on an 8 lane straight freeway, he sped.  That's not the way the law works, we don't get to break it just because it's stupid.  But EFA including myself, don't excuse the behaviour of the recording industry in nailing their second victim to bankruptcy.

This weekend I attended and spoke at a rally organised by Ethan Watson in favour of the introduction of an R18+ rating for computer games. Many thanks to Ethan for organising the event, and thanks to the 50 or so people who turned up to show their support.

Photos courtesy of Andrew Wade.

You can view video of the event filmed by Julian on youtube: Part One;  Part Two;  Part Three; Part Four.

The next step in this campaign is to pressure the Commonwealth Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor, to release the discussion paper. If you have not already, please take the time to send a letter showing your support. Once this is done, we will work on putting together a submission that addresses the concerns of Australian gamers.

The two main points that I wanted to get across on Saturday are relatively simple, but important. We need to refocus this debate by ensuring that everyone understands that interactive entertainment is an evolving and important legitimate expressive medium. I think an R18+ rating is important for two main reasons:

• An R18+ rating empowers adults and parents to make better decisions about the games they want to play and the games they want to allow their children to play.
• An R18+ rating for games, consistent with ratings for films, would enable Australians to create more complex and expressive stories that deal with adult themes - games are not just for children, and we do significant harm to freedom of expression by limiting the material that we deem acceptable in games to that which we find acceptable for children.

See our campaign page on our wiki for more details about how you can help.