In another move to penalise the consumer and ensure an excellent monopoly to those currently stifling creativity yet another government proposal has reared its ugly head.
http://www.slyck.com/story1579_Australia_Drafts_Further_Tightening_of_Copyright_LawsThe Australian Attorney-General's Department is looking to increase the penalties for copyright infringement, and has outlined its proposal in a new draft resolution. The proposal offers new penalties which essentially give copyright infringers a choice; either pay a fine or risk court prosecution. Of course, paying a fine usually implies money. With this draft, the penalty could also include the device used to created the infringing "article". The maximum fine money-wise is $6,600.00 (Australian).
Many may ask what happens to this "fine" money as it looks like it goes squarely into the courts coffers and so no benefit will accrue to those claiming to lose revenue, and all this for what in some cases amounts to passing a copy of an album to a friend without charge, is this really all that's required to happen to enter the same category as a commercial scale duplicator ?
If you are an OZ citizen and have concerns please contact the minister in the article to ask why they seem unable to tell commercial "for-profit" from social net-loss duplication, whilst both may be unwelcome by the industry they are not and should not be classed in the same category.
