On 23 December 2015, the government released an ‘exposure draft’ of a Bill that would make a number of amendments to the Copyright Act.
The Bill – called the Copyright Amendment (Disabilities and other Measures Bill) – would:
- simplify the statutory licences for education
- extend the exception for exams to online exams
- simplify and update the provisions that enable libraries and other collecting institutions to make ‘preservation copies’ of material in their collections such as manuscripts
- introduce a fixed term of protection for unpublished works that are currently covered by copyright indefinitely
- simplify and update the provisions that allow the making of accessible format versions for people with disabilities
- extend the ‘safe harbour’ provisions that limit the remedies for infringement against online service providers.
Some more information here.
The Government asked for submissions by 12 February 2016. There are links below to submissions that are available online.
The Bill has not yet been introduced into Parliament. At this stage it seems unlikely that the Bill will be introduced before an election is called.
- Australian Blindness Forum
- Australian Copyright Council
- Australian Digital Access to Collections
- Australian Digital Alliance
- Australian Digital Alliance: safe harbour scheme extension
- Australian Information Industry Association
- Australian Society of Archivists
- Australian Subscription Television and Radio Association (ASTRA)
- Copyright Agency (PDF)
- Copyright Agency, Copyright Advisory Group to the COAG Education Council, Screenrights and Universities Australia
- Electronic Frontiers Australia
- Law Council of Australia
- Music Rights Australia
- Screenrights
- Vision Australia (scroll to Submissions > 2016)
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