Subject: FW: News release from CAL
From: Annabelle Herd (aherd@nla.gov.au)
Date: ti 08 kesä 1999 - 03:33:14 EEST
Dear ECUP listmembers,
I was very interested to read Mikael Book's comments
on the most recent CAL Australia press release.
This is just a quick note to let you know that
the Copyright Agency Limited / Australian publisher / Australian Copyright
Council approach to
digital copyright policy formulation has to date been
rejected in Australia.
In Australia we are currently in the process of
updating our Copyright Act and implementing the
WIPO Treaties. Through the 'Digital Agenda' copyright
reforms, the government has decided to carry
forward into the digital environment all existing
exceptions to copyright. Users of copyright material
will therefore be able to utilise new technologies in
relying on the exceptions that currently exist in the
print environment such as fair dealing and library
copying exceptions.
The Government has also formulated a ban on
commercial dealings in copy protection circumvention
devices in such a way that legitimate users (such
as libraries) should be able to obtain these devices in
order to carry out lawful acts of copying or
communication.
The legislation is expected to be introduced into
the Australian Parliament by the end of June. I am
sure we will hear more from CAL and the publishers
when that happens.
Kind regards,
Annabelle.
The two responses to the draft legislation from the
Australian Libraries Copyright Committee are available through
http://www.alia.org.au/copyright/news/index.html
A response from the Australian Digital Alliance
(a new broad based coalition of copyright consumers)
is available at http://Tony-Barry.emu.id.au/interests/library/ada.html.
Annabelle Herd
Copyright Advisor (Law and Policy)
Australian Libraries Copyright Committee
PO Box E202
Kingston ACT 2604
Ph: 02 6262 1273
Fax: 02 6273 1180
Email: aherd@nla.gov.au
> ----------
> From: Mikael Book[SMTP:book@kaapeli.fi]
> Sent: Saturday, 5 June 1999 21:33 PM
> To: ecup-list@kaapeli.fi
> Subject: Re: News release from CAL
>
> OAA23276
> Sender: owner-ecup-list
> Precedence: bulk
> Reply-To: ecup-list@kaapeli.fi
>
>
>
> Dear ecup-list subscribers,
>
> the opinions which we read in the news release from the Australian
> "Copyright Agency Limited" are not at all unusual. What we have here is,
> nevertheless, an unusually straigtforward formulation of what can be
> called the militant entrepreneurial approach to information. "Digital
> transactions are all recordable and remunerable", rejoices the
> businessman, discovering a promised new land ...
>
> 'Transaction' is a keyword of "eCommerce". The way Mr Freeman (an
> Australian publisher) looks upon the transaction of intellectual property
> is revealing: "In my view, copyright in the digital world is effectively a
> transactional rather than an inherent property right". If this becomes
> the dominant idea of copyright (and that is precisely what seems to be
> happening), then both the authors and the public will have to look for
> their rights on the moon. The conception of Mr Freeman squarely transfers
> all rights to the the owners of the rights to exploit the digital
> transactions. These rightsowners are likely to be transnational chains
> of information resellers.
>
> Strikingly revealing are also the formulations by Mr McDonald (apparently
> another Australian e-commercialist):
>
> "It is wrong to think that material in digital form and material in
> hardcopy form will be consumed in the same way by the public",
>
> and
>
> "It is wrong to think that libraries will play the same role in
> relation to the collection and dissemination of digital material as
> they play in relation to hard-copy items such as books".
>
> Is not Mr McDonald very close to saying that it is wrong to think
> altogether? At least he close to fanaticism, because, what he asserts
> himself boils down to his own, highly ideological credo. What he means to
> say, actually, is that there are no economic, social and political
> alternatives. "It is wrong to think" -- so we just have to accept that
> public libraries disappear and the the act of reading itself is
> transformed into the *transaction* of reading.
>
> In the international "Save Access"-appeal (cf.
> http://www.kaapeli.fi/saveaccess/iad3.htm) released a year ago by the
> present writer and some friends it was stated that the
>
> "borders of our common informational ground are threatened by commercial
> invasion"
>
> What we had in mind was, precisely, the legions of Mr Freeman, Mr McDonald
> et consortes.
>
> Yours,
>
> - Mikael Book
>
> Mikael Book * Katto-Meny * Tallbergink 1/39 * FIN-00180 Helsinki
> book@kaapeli.fi * Phone +358-9-6947730 * Fax +358-9-27090369
> gsm 040 5511 324
>
>
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