Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) has lodged a submission to the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department (AGD), arguing that Australian consumers be given the right to make digital copies of their films, photographs, and computer and video games for their private use.

The submission is in response to the AGD’s review of sections 47J and 110AA of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), which currently only permit certain forms of analog to digital and digital to analog copying. For example, the current law allows Australians to digitise a purchased photo once, or to print a purchased digital photo once, or to make a DVD copy of a VHS tape.

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Filed in: Copyright, Media Releases

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today expressed its concern at the decision of the Full Federal Court in the Cooper v Universal Music Pty Ltd appeal. The initial decision in this case held that a Brisbane webmaster, his Internet Service Provider (ISP), a director of the ISP, and a technical support employee of the ISP were liable for ‘authorising’ the infringing activities of users of a website which acted as an index and search engine for MP3 files located elsewhere on the Internet.

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Filed in: Copyright, Media Releases

A Senate Committee inquiring into the controversial Copyright Amendment Bill 2006 has issued a report recommending changes to the Bill. Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today cautiously welcomed the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee but expressed concern that the Committee did not recommend the criminal provisions be deferred until next year.

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Filed in: Copyright, Media Releases

Nov 2006: EFA has made a written submission to the Senate Committee inquiry into the Copyright Amendment Bill 2006. The Bill, in its current form, contains a deeply flawed and over-broad implementation of the Technical Protection Measures provisions of the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement. The Bill will also introduce new purported rights of time-shifting and format-shifting which are much narrower than those existing in the United States, and contains a raft of new criminal provisions designed to make it easier to criminally prosecute Internet users for copyright infringement. These laws could be applied to children as young as 10 years old, and carry penalties up to 5 years jail.

See EFA’s Submission to the Copyright Amendment Bill Inquiry.

Filed in: Copyright

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), in conjunction with the Australian Consumers’ Association and the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, has lodged an amicus curiae application with the Full Federal Court in appeal proceedings regarding the Kazaa file-sharing software.

The three public interest groups, represented by the Communications Law Centre at Victoria University, are seeking permission to take part in the appeal as ‘friends of the court’.

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Filed in: Copyright, Media Releases