On 29 April 2016, the Productivity Commission released a draft report on Australia’s intellectual property arrangements. The report covers all areas of intellectual property, including copyright.
The draft recommendations for copyright include:
- introduction of a broad new copyright exception, modelled on the ‘fair use’ exception in US copyright law
- repeal of restrictions on ‘parallel importation’ of books by the end of 2017
- allowing consumers to circumvent ‘geoblocking’ technology
- an ‘open access’ policy for publicly funded research
- extension of the ‘safe harbour’ provisions for internet service providers to other online service providers such as Google
The Commission also said that it had ‘found’ that a ‘reasonable’ period of copyright protection would be 15 to 20 years from creation of a work.
And it has requested information on issues that include:
- provisions in contracts that ‘override’ copyright exceptions
- institutional arrangements for intellectual property in the government
- changes to the Federal Circuit Court and Federal Court to assist dispute resolution for small- and medium-sized enterprises
Submissions on the draft report are due by 3 June 2016.
Responses to the draft report
2 May 2016
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