Hi everyone,
As you may (or may not) be aware, I’ve recently been appointed Inquiries Officer. This is essentially nothing more than a continuation of what I’ve already been doing for the last 12 months or more: coordinating, compiling and submitting on behalf of the Pirate Party to various Parliamentary, Governmental and independent inquiries and reviews; but I get a title to validate external representation. One thing I would like to do more is encourage all interested members to assist in preparing submissions.
The next submission due is to the Attorney-General’s Department on its discussion paper regarding online copyright infringement. This discussion paper is available from http://www.ag.gov.au/Consultations/Pages/Onlinecopyrightinfringementpublicconsultation.aspx
We haven’t started writing yet (though it’s due 1 September 2014), and it would be very helpful if people started posting links to useful resources here.
The three “prongs” of our argument will likely be:
(1) This discussion paper is a diversion of resources when no focus has been given to either the IT Pricing Inquiry or the ALRC Report “Copyright and the Digital Economy”, both of which are far more important (especially the IT Pricing Inquiry in terms of consumer access);
(2) Graduated response/increasing ISP liability/increasing responsibilities of ISPs would be an unfair burden and graduated response regimes have proven ineffective; and
(3) Website blocking is equally ineffective.
A couple of resources to start off:
Rebecca Giblin, ‘Evaluating Graduated Response’ (2014) 37 Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts 147.
Also opinions as to the directions of the submission would be greatly appreciated too. If there are any key points you think should be included, start discussing! 