Australians will have better access to orphan works and government funded research under commitments made by the Government in its response to the Productivity Commission’s IP Inquiry, released 25 August 2017.
The Inquiry report, which was released to the public late last year, called for important changes to update our copyright system for the digital age. These include:
Librarians and archivists all over the country can hang up their aprons after successfully cooking their way to copyright reform.
Captain Cook’s diaries and Jane Austen’s letters will finally be freely available to all the world thanks to an important copyright bill introduced to Parliament today.
Australia’s libraries and archives are elated at the tabling of the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill. The Bill includes a number of important and overdue amendments that will dramatically free up how Australians can access and use copyright material.
There will be no extension to authorisation liability under the online copyright infringement proposals outlined this week by the Communications Minister and Attorney-General.
“This is excellent news for libraries” said Trish Hepworth, the law and policy advisor for the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee (ALCC).
“The original proposal to extend authorisation liability would have increased legal risk and uncertainty for the library, archive and information sector. We are very glad that the government listened to the concerns of the sector when revising the scheme.”
