“The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications today released its report on IT pricing in Australia, making 10 recommendations and concluding that the long-discussed ‘Australia tax’ is real.” One of the recommendations is to make geo-blocking circumvention legal – and as a last resort, the committee recommends the government to make geo-blocking illegal altogether. Pretty strong language.
Of course, this will have the “downside” of making it so that Australia can’t effectively ban games and other media that is available in any other country. Here’s hoping the busy bodies don’t catch on to that.
The Pirate Party has working around geo-blocking as part of its platform (we have to clarify the text, but it’s there in spirit, see http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Copyright towards the end regarding format shifting). I think it’s funny that this is a recommendation that is completely incongruous to the laws of the land. Most notably, it is unclear whether evading geoblocks this would constitute violating “technological protection measures” (TPM, the Australian version of the DMCA).
There are also many other laws and regulations which are nonsensical alongside this recommendation, and you mention the ratings system as a good example. The Pirate Party is for an industry run ratings system and no RC rating: http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Digital_Liberties#Censorshi…
I know this sounds like an ad, but the fact is that if you want someone who’s going to take this issue seriously, it’s going to be the only party in Australia who cares about digital liberties.
And he sang as he shoved that geo-block up Adobe’s arse,
You’ll come a Waltzing Matilda with me~
Haha nice one. Great news this. About time the Gov gets tough on this. Australia is one of the most expensive places to live (cost of living). Those ahole OS companies gouging us leaves a bitter taste. Sadly, the LNP will probably drop this line whilst undoing the NBN when they win the federal election. Back to the drawing board.
It’s increasingly looking like labour may yet take the election back.
Failing that, so long as ALP and greens can take >50% of the senate, we should be able to avoid the brain-dead libertarianism that has taken over the right.
On a more article related note, $400 for the 64GB iphone in the states, and $1000 here. Ignoring the obscene price rise with tiny memory increments, that kind of price increase is just plain mad.
Edited 2013-07-30 03:12 UTC
You have a very distorted view of what libertarianism is. Hint, the Liberal + National Coalition are not really liberal parties.
– Some policies of the Nationals are arguably agrarian socialist.
– Both parties have strong social conservative elements.
– There are some individuals that are libertarian (i.e. Malcolm Turnbull), however that is not the nature of the entire party.
Don’t let it bug you. Mislabeling things that theocrats and nationalists do as ‘libertarian’ is a classic attempt to smear libertarianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_perspectives_on_intellectu…
Do House of Representative Committee recommendations that require the altering of existing law usually pan out in Australia?
(In my country, they don’t. Never optimistic about recommendations that say, this is the law, so we propose making it legal to circumvent measures in place to enforce existing law, even if we can’t change the law… just because it’s illogical gobbledygook.)
These committees are a compete farce. The politicians get paid an extra $20,000 for a few weeks sitting on the committee. The results are published. No further action is taken.
I run Kubuntu on my desktop and laptop, and Android (with apps from F-droid) on my tablet and phone. I took the trouble to find and buy Laptop and desktop hardware (as much as possible from Australian companies) which did not come with any Microsoft software pre-installed. To do this I had to avoid buying from any of the major consumer electronics stores. By doing so I have been able to purchase all my hardware for less than the cost (in Australia) of any one of the major ripoffware bundles from Microsoft, Adobe or Apple.
This strategy elegantly meets my every household IT need whilst completely avoiding American ripoffware from Microsoft, Adobe and Apple. Unlike the government’s suggestions, it is also all completely legal under the Australian government’s own laws.
Edited 2013-07-30 11:01 UTC