Philip

Mr Ruddock has taken expert advice into consideration and has backed off several key issues in the new proposed Australian Copyright Bill. Mostly, consumers would be legally able to format and time shift from one media source to another (such as a TV to iPod Video), some of the on the spot fines have been removed and in general made consumers less at risk of being found infringing. What does hit hard is if you’re distributing illegally for monetary gain, which is what I’ve always opposed anyhow.

The Greens still oppose the reforms claiming that Australia has bowed to pressure from USA’s FTA (I don’t blame them). It’s expected the bill will go through by January 2007 and a review to take place in March 2008 to see if it’s working out. Get the news from the Sydney Morning Herald here.

Update!

Nick’s just given me some links to the source of the article, a certain Kim Weatherall who’s an Australian IP expert. Get her view on the amendments to the Copyright Bill here. It’s not all good news it looks like as usual, the Government has tried to sneak it in the back door yet again.