Catherine RaffaeleSenior Policy Officer – IT and Communications

Campaign for Fair Use

• Australia has no “fair use” provision, we have a specific and weaker concept called “fair dealing”

• CHOICE was been involved in campaigning for a “fair use” type right so that consumers are not viewed as infringers when they do socially acceptable acts such as tape a television program or transfer a CD to an MP3 player.

Fair Dealing Expanded But…

• The Government introduced The Copyright Amendment Bill 2006 which gave Australians the right to (for domestic and private purposes):

• Time Shift eg record programs to watch at a later date

• Format Shift eg digitize your analogue files• Some extra but limited abilities to share

copyright protected material

Australia/US Free Trade Agreement

• May 2004, Australia signed a Free Trade Agreement with the US which required Australians to:

• Extend Copyright protection from 50 years after author’s death to 70 years

• Make many copyright infringements criminal (using unclear terminology that doesn’t safeguard consumers from being prosecuted)

• And…

• Took away Australians’ right to circumvent Technological Protection Measures.

• So Australians cannot legally make use of their new fair dealing rights if it involves circumventing a technological protection measure (eg Digital Rights Management)

Free Trade Agreements- Growing patchwork of obligations• Very realistic chance of hamstringing future IP

campaigns• Binding agreements limits the scope of change• Limited ability to review laws when society changes• Decentralised unlike International Treaties – a

growing patchwork of agreements• Harder to know who to lobby, what to target• Difficult to know what can and can’t be changed

Rights should not be Tradeable

• It should be inconceivable that we would allow our right to vote or freedoms of speech* to be modified on the negotiation table yet this is what we have allowed to happen with Intellectual Property rights – yet these rights or lack of rights influence our ability to exercise what many of what we would consider fundamental rights.

*For countries that have them.

Charters to Assert Consumers’ Rights

• European Charter on the Rights of Energy Consumers (A World Consumers Energy Charter?)

• EU Air Passenger Rights• Charter of Health Consumer Rights• A Charter of Communications Rights

(Telecommunication Services)

Intellectual Property and Consumer Digital Rights Charters• Adelphi Charter (IP Rights)• BEUC’s Consumer Digital Rights Charter (6

rights)• Norwegian Consumer Council• CHOICE’s “Our Digital Rights” Charter

Lessons for the Future

• We need to be more strategic • We need to be more proactive – the IP

industry has shown how this works so well• We need to understand the big picture and

what’s going on behind the scenes• We need to act both locally and

internationally• We need to strengthen our networks