David, Vaile --- "Shifting sands? The moderate impact of Australia's 2006 copyright exceptions" [2010] UNSWLRS 60

Last Updated: 3 December 2010

Shifting sands? The moderate impact of Australia’s 2006 copyright exceptions

David Vaile, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, UNSW

This paper is available for download at http://law.bepress.com/unswwps/flrps10/art60/

Citation

This article was published in Malcolm J. ed., Access to Knowledge for Consumers: Reports of Campaigns and Research 2008–2010, Consumers International, Kuala Lumpur 2010.

Abstract

This report for Consumers International and CHOICE, arising from the ‘Unlocking IP’ ARC Linkage project under Prof Graham Greenleaf, investigated consumer attitudes (via an online survey of 1500 people) and the experiences and opinions of relevant experts concerning the impact and effect, if any, of the 2006 changes to the Copyright Act 1968 which legalised iPods and TiVos or ‘format shifting’ and ‘timeshifting’. While many consumers had no awareness of this retrospective legalisation of common practices, and most experts expected this, among those that did there was a small but significant increase in reported respect for the copyright regime and similarly small but significant decrease in reported willingness to engage in unauthorised downloads. Fears in some quarters that this minor liberalisation of user entitlements would have adverse consequences appear misplaced.