Our response to the exposure draft of the Access Reform Bill

CC Australia has made a submission supporting the reforms proposed in the exposure draft of the Access Reform Bill.

By Elliott Bledsoe, Co-lead

Comic: ‘Copyright Reform’ 2011, Nina Paley. Full attribution below.

Last Friday CC Australia made a submission to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications in response to their consultation on the exposure draft of the Copyright Amendment (Access Reform) Bill 2021 and a review of the technological protection measures (TPMs) exceptions in the Copyright Regulations 2017. In summary, the exposure draft of the Bill includes five main reform measures:

  • A new limitation on remedies for the use of orphan materials;
  • A new fair dealing exception introduced for quotes from copyright material;
  • Simplifying and extending the library and archives exceptions;
  • Modernising the education exceptions; and
  • Modernising the government exceptions.

In our submission, CC Australia expresses its support for the proposed reforms as they harmonise with CC’s vision and mission. There are strong public interest arguments to support activating orphan works and supporting equitable access to cultural collections (and it aligns with CC’s Open GLAM Program). Permitting quotation of copyright material in a range of noncommercial scenarios will help make research available to the research community and the public quicker. And further facilitating online education and encouraging flexibility in the delivery of government services are both worthwhile endeavours.

Like other countries around the world, Australia has been engaged in a number of reform processes designed to modernise our copyright system. The need to do so has become more apparent in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other disruptions to public services resulting from emergencies such as fire and flood. If enacted the Bill will introduce much needed flexibility to the Copyright Act.

Our submission is available to read online. You can find out more about the Bill and the review of the TPMs exceptions on the Department’s website and in the media release about the consultation issued by Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher MP on Tuesday 21 December 2021.

You can also download the submission as a PDF (PDF – 151 KB), a Word document (DOCX – 119 KB) or in Open Document Format (ODT – 105 KB).

CREDITS

Comic: ‘Copyright Reform’ 2011, Nina Paley. This version has been adapted. Original available on Mimi & Eunice, mimiandeunice.com/2011/05/23/copyright-reform. Available for reuse under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence, creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0.

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