| Jacqueline McNally on 6 Mar 2001 16:46:02 -0000 |
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| Re: <nettime> sharing e-mail banned by law - 5 years jail or $60,000 fines |
At 03:30 AM 03/05/2001, you wrote: >[From: Eric Scheid <eric@ironclad.net.au> >To: "tbtf-irregulars" <tbtf-irregulars@world.std.com>] > >When will the madness end? > >An article in today's Sunday Telegraph (March 4, 2001), is the following >article, which I cannot find on their website :-( > >--------------------------------------------- The same article appeared in the Sunday Times. The example that the journalist used is the key - it has nothing to do with copyright, but everything to do with selling a newspaper. The following news release puts the issue into perspective. I suspect the Sunday papers had trouble finding a newsworthy example. ---------------- http://www.law.gov.au/aghome/agnews/2001newsag/931_01.htm News Release Attorney-General The Hon. Daryl Williams AM QC MP 4 March 2001 E-MAIL AND COPYRIGHT LAW Contrary to alarmist media reports, sharing e-mail is not banned by law. Amendments to the Copyright Act that came into effect today do not outlaw the practice of forwarding personal e-mails to other people. That would be ridiculous. The Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act updates copyright law to ensure it provides the same protections in an electronic environment as exist in a hard copy environment. For example, musicians whose music is distributed online without their permission will be able to take action to stop it, in the same way they can if pirate CDs are sold over the counter. Forwarding a personal e-mail is unlikely to breach copyright laws. A court would need to find that the contents of the e-mail were an "original literary work". For example, if the e-mail was simply a joke that everyone had been re-hashing for years, it is doubtful it would have the necessary originality to be protected by copyright. Similarly, a casual exchange of personal information or office gossip would probably not be original enough to have copyright in it. The Digital Agenda Act brings copyright law into the electronic age. It is an important reform that will further protect the rights of musicians, artists, writers, film makers and other creators of original works. It will also continue to allow users, especially libraries and educational institutions, reasonable access to copyright material through new communications technologies. It will not impose hefty penalties on everyday users of personal e-mail. ----------------------------- More of a concern is: South Australia's Net Censorship Threat 3rd March 2001 An Internet censorship Bill was introduced into the South Australian Parliament on 8th November 2000 by the Attorney-General, Trevor Griffin. Among other things, the Bill criminalises making available content unsuitable for children online, even if the content is only made available to adults. EFA has issued an Action Alert suggesting ways of informing politicians about the dangers of this Bill. EFA alert www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/alert0301.html South Australia is about to criminalise provision to adults of material unsuitable for children on the Internet. It will be the first Australian State to do so. Contact South Australian Members of Parliament to express your opposition to Internet Censorship. The S.A. Parliament is likely to vote on the legislation in the session commencing 13th March 2001. Please redistribute this alert in appropriate places but not after 16th March 2001. More information and Analysis of the Bill www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/sabill.html Other references: www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/17303.html Australia goes stark raving mad over Net censorship By: Kieren McCarthy Posted: 02/03/2001 at 13:18 GMT www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2690663,00.html Australia fights online obscenity By Juliana Gruenwald, Interactive Week February 26, 2001 Regards Jacqueline # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net