Author Topic: Owning an iPod makes you a criminal, says Australian Govt (Read 2014 times)

idiotboy · « **on:** November 20, 2006, 12:36:34 PM »

Owning an iPod, camera phone or a DVD recorder might be enough to land you in jail or lumbered with a large fine under the proposed changes to Australia's copyright laws.

huggumwuggums · « **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2006, 01:16:13 PM »

Wouldn't PCs be considered as well?

aimaime · « **Reply #2 on:** November 20, 2006, 06:49:33 PM »

why don't they just have policemen become cashiers at all the electronic shops. then they can just save time by arresting everyone after each purchase..

Masabi · « **Reply #3 on:** November 20, 2006, 07:29:36 PM »

I'm so glad I don't live in Australia.

LovelyMermaid · « **Reply #4 on:** November 20, 2006, 08:57:45 PM »

^ w00t! me too! *high five*

DashReiza · « **Reply #5 on:** November 20, 2006, 10:41:42 PM »

They need to calm down. :/

Himalia · « **Reply #6 on:** November 20, 2006, 10:44:30 PM »

Totally insane does that mean that soon none of these items will be available in any shop in Australia soon then ? afterall cant sell something illegal like that can you.

john_hung · « **Reply #7 on:** November 20, 2006, 11:17:58 PM »

"These new provisions have the potential to make everyday Australians in homes and businesses across the country into criminals on a scale that we have not witnessed before."

um, australia was founded by a bunch of criminals

Kei · « **Reply #8 on:** November 20, 2006, 11:32:00 PM »

Quote from: john_hung;239691

um, australia was founded by a bunch of criminals

It was?

Also, this law is shit and the way Australia is currently being run, it'll probably pass. This is JUST AS BAD as the fucking Free Trade Agreement with the USA. It's a complete farce.

idiotboy · « **Reply #9 on:** November 21, 2006, 01:28:31 PM »

Quote from: Himalia;239671

Totally insane does that mean that soon none of these items will be available in any shop in Australia soon then ? afterall cant sell something illegal like that can you.

it's far more insidious than that: selling the devices remains legal, as does owning them, with one exception. that exception is: if a copyright holder or licencee come after you for copyright 'theft', then usage of one of those devices will be concrete evidence of a criminal offense, because a: the way the law is drafted it doesn't allow for the copying of music from a cd you purchased to an mp3 player you purchased (it even doesn't allow for home taping of tv shows to watch later); and b: it introduces strict liability - so that even if you didn't know you were doing anything wrong, you are still guilty of the offense.

ordinarily this sort of rubbish would get weeded out in the various committee processes that legislation must pass thru under the system of parliamentary democracy, but the bastards who run australia have long since taken to ignoring these processes and enforcing party discipline - so it's quite likely that a desperately flawed piece of legislation such as this will pass regardless.

is it any wonder i have no desire to return home?

Guchi_Jnr · « **Reply #10 on:** November 21, 2006, 01:53:27 PM »

Quote

The exceptions allow users to make one "main copy" of a CD as well as "temporary copies", but the temporary copies must be destroyed at the "first practicable time".

Loading music onto an iPod involves having one copy on the device and another on the computer in iTunes, meaning the user has two main copies in addition to the original CD. This is illegal even if the new bill is passed.

This is only true if you have your ipod set to sync with itunes, and not copied over manually. And if it's done manually, surely the pc copy would be classed as a "temporary copy", and there's noway to argue that it's not, unless they bust a person's carrying around their pc and ipod at the same time. And another thing, how can the authorities know for sure that ANY music on an ipod actually came from a CD, and not via the itunes store.

Will this law pass??...yeah, probably knowing Australia.
Will the authorities enforce this to the point where they are busting people on the streets with ipods??...No chance.

ebc · « **Reply #11 on:** November 21, 2006, 04:46:04 PM »

Actually the scary part about the new bill is any police officer suspecting you of copyright infringement can give you an on the spot fine.
I heard this on JJJ though so I dunno much about the rest of the issues.

But luckily there's a big difference between the law and common sense so I think you'd be pretty unlucky to have a policeman book you for infringement. Most of them are just normal people who tape shows on tv and copy cd's anyway so meh.

idiotboy · « **Reply #12 on:** November 21, 2006, 05:18:54 PM »

Quote from: Guchi_Jnr;240156

Will this law pass??...yeah, probably knowing Australia.
Will the authorities enforce this to the point where they are busting people on the streets with ipods??...No chance.

it's not a question of busting ppl on the street - that won't happen. however, copyright owners haven't been able to make any prosecutions in australia until now; partly because of the difficulty in proving the intentions of the person charged with copyright 'theft'. what this law does is establishes guilt, through strict liability, if someone is a: charged with copyright theft; and b: possesses one of the devices trapped by the poorly drafted legislation.

assuming it passes - and there's no reason to think it won't - the next test will be when copyright owners take their first action against an infringer. if they pick a really obvious case - say someone uploading bucketloads of protected content, or an active dvd bootlegger, then they'll get themselves a precedent and we'll all be fucked (well, i won't, but i won't be returning to aust either). if they pick a stupid case - some kid with some ripped songs - then the public (and possibly judicial) outrage will be such that they'll never be able to enforce it.

phil-the-arsehole-ruddock claimed in one of the articles i read that the intention of the criminal sanctions in the bill were to go after those ppl running dvd-cloning factories, not individual users, but i can safely say i've never believed a word ruddock has ever uttered. given that the large copyright holders have a: never succeeded in an individual prosecution in aust; b: want to run just those sorts of private prosecutions (as they do in the US); c: will be given the power to do so under this piece of legislation, it strikes me as unlikely that they'll wait very long before they test those powers in court.

Asmodai · « **Reply #13 on:** November 21, 2006, 06:28:51 PM »

It's basically a terrorist tactic. The music companies can't go after everyone who copies music, so they hope that by imposing a few ridiculous fines on random people they can create a chilling effect on the public and deter them from their behaviour.

In the past the Australian public hasn't been cowed by terrorist actions. I doubt they will be this time either.

I don't know the Australian constitution. In some countries there are protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Meaning that if a police officer saw you listening to music on your iPod on the street, they normally couldn't accost you and demand to search your iPod for copyrighted tracks.

I don't know if that applies in Australia or not.

Tanier · « **Reply #14 on:** November 21, 2006, 09:23:27 PM »

Someone should make an actual movie out of this. well maybe not a whole movie because it will fail misurably, but just have like 30 mins of footage involving this put in it