General Australian Politics Thread

You'd have to renegotiate copyright treaties in order to accomplish such a term shortening.

Yeah, that's kind of the main problem, but also something of an necessary one. Most of these trade agreements are pretty shitty, anyway, and the Berne Convention needs a major update.

edited 29th May '16 2:05:44 AM by Cronosonic

I agree we're short-changed by lacking a decent version of fair use. But you're focusing on what huge corporations can do to extend copyright indefinitely. That's not relevant to what independent creators need in a small country like Australia so that artistic industries can flourish. The Australian Society of Authors is completely against reducing copyright terms because of the detrimental effect it will have on our authors. Saying most authors don't give a shit doesn't fly.

I recently read an article about how it took the A Song of Ice and Fire novels two decades to build up hype. The external changes in the media landscape over those decades impacted their popularity. Literature is often not intended to be contemporary the way, for example, television is. Rather, it's supposed to be long-lasting. It can take time for creative works to be economically successful - literally decades. Reforming copyright rules for all media in the same way is applying a sledgehammer approach and it is counterproductive.

Shortening copyright terms for any kind of individual creators in the arts has no benefit and would be just plain awful for Australian creativity.

edited 29th May '16 6:25:36 AM by editerguy

I take little stock in the likes of the AAS because they're generally copyright maximalists who have little regard for the public domain and the rights of the public, as demonstrated by their opposition against fair use. It's not just about authors or corporations, it's also about the rights of the public.

That being said, I would have no issue with any reduction being to a minimum of about 40-50 years or higher if copyright was properly clarified copyright to only cover the "text" itself, and not the names, ideas, etc. inside, which, to my knowledge, is already the case in Australian copyright law. While I'm not exactly comfortable with life+ terms, because they don't really encourage creativity whatsoever, my main concern is that the public and other authors are essentially denied access to countless concepts that have become a part of culture because the House of Mouse doesn't want their mascot to slip into the public domain.

Copyright covering only the works themselves would enable other authors to 'remix' the ideas from multiple works into something new and interesting, or use new interpretations of existing ideas. This has been happening to countless public domain stuff such as mythology and more recent concepts that have passed into the public domain, such as Dracula and Sherlock Holmes, but the market for such works isn't flooded because people would get sick of them pretty quickly and authors will always try and do something new and interesting no matter what material they have access to, that access may simply be a slight bonus that could actually enrich their work. At the same time, the original authors' works will still be covered and other authors won't be allowed to just copy them outright without a license.

edited 29th May '16 10:26:06 AM by Cronosonic

When you dismiss arguments about the concerns and interests of authors by saying the Australian Society of Authors are "generally copyright maximalists who have little regard for the public domain and the rights of the public", you're actually relying on ad hominem, which is a logical fallacy (attacking the man and not the argument, so to speak). You haven't pointed out the actual flaws in their arguments.^note It's perhaps worth nothing that the ASA is a member-driven organisation, not some ideological think tank. It represents Australian authors and their interests.

Your argument is deeply flawed because you keep resorting to saying that corporations do so-and-so, therefore everyone, individual creators/artists included, should face-such-and-such a limitation. This is an illogical argument. The conclusion does not follow from your premise at all.

But your examples have nothing to do with life terms. All the people who created those works are dead. Because art can be unprofitable indefinitely, a creator's rights should last a lifetime, to allow them to reap the maximum benefits (which realistically might not be much).^note I admit I'm not entirely sold on life-plus terms, since I see creativity as being encouraged by the creator reaping the benefits during their lifetime, not after it.

Also, as you yourself point out, concepts and ideas aren't covered by copyright, in essence only execution is (e.g. a poem, a specific character or whatever). So claiming that the current system restricts the kind of ideas or concepts artists can use doesn't hold.

In terms of remixes, fair use is sufficient to allow for that (which is why large media corporations want to get rid of it in America, presumably).

edited 31st May '16 7:12:10 PM by editerguy

Apologies if I got somewhat heated about this thing.

But, really, I really just want to balance the rights of the public with the rights of authors. (Can't give a rat's ass about publishers, though, they're increasingly irrelevant in some industries, especially book publishing and music, and are basically parasites at this point in industries where self-publishing is easier than ever.) However, what is actually covered by copyright is not nearly as clear (few resources on Australian copyright mention that ideas, names, concepts, etc. aren't covered, but rather the actual expression of those ideas, but none of them really establish what this idea-expression dichotomy actually covers - where is the line between idea and expression drawn? Though Wikipedia mentions that "The rights in Part IV subject matters are more limited, because infringement requires exact copying of the actual subject matter (sound-alikes or remakes are not covered)."), and it doesn't help that actually publishing something that is normally covered by someone else's copyright in the USA is problematic.

Basically? I'm okay with authors having rights to their specific work (the exact "text") rather than ideas, characters, names, etc for their entire lifetime (and maybe a post-death period if they die before a certain period after publication), but we do need proper fair use that covers remixes and different expressions, and we need publicly available and comprehensive clarification of what copyright actually covers, because it is vague as shit, which only causes potential authors to veer on the side of caution and gives more power to corporations who hog intellectual monopolies like a dragon's horde.

Speaking of which, a "use it or lose it" clause should be applicable for corporations, and corporations should have much smaller copyright terms, because corporations are not people, but immortal legal entities.

What about posthumously-published works (or co-authored works) by authors?

edited 1st Jun '16 6:36:02 AM by Greenmantle

Co-authored or posthumous works would probably just have a set expiry date just to avoid making it complicated. Co-authored works are already a bit messy in terms of copyright as it is.

Australia's video game restrictions were also very stupid and the pricing is still shite compared to most other Western countries. It doesn't help that the only notable video game company and series Australia has is Krome and Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (Which are admittedly underrated. 3D Platformers are my favourite genre, and they are very rare nowadays), and Krome krumbled in the late 2000's along with many other middle-tier developers and is pretty much a Indie developer nowadays with only about 3 people working there anymore. At least you are better off than South Africa or, god help you, Brazil, though.

edited 1st Jun '16 5:55:53 PM by Bat178

No need to apologise, it's an interesting discussion

But I don't really see the benefit of watering down intellectual property rights as much as you're suggesting.

Agreed that we could benefit from fair use, but as for dropping copyright for characters? As well as being pretty arbitrary, it's really disadvantageous for artists. Imagine if an Australian writer painstakingly finishes their new story with an amazing original character. Since there's no copyright for characters, an overseas studio just grabs the character and makes a movie using a different story, making a decent profit for which the original creator doesn't see a cent. They could even pump out heavily-marketed spinoff novels with the character written by various commissioned writers, out-competing the original writer's attempts at profiting from their own creation. How is that fair? It certainly doesn't encourage Australians to take a chance on something cool and original in the hopes it might pay off. It's just making it easier for media corporations to rip off the little guy.

Well, the copyright regime is a bit haphazard. But you can basically copy someone's idea as long as it is expressed differently enough that it's not obviously the same story plot-point by plot-point or as long as your action hero doesn't have the same name as that other guy's action hero, that kind of thing. It's down to execution or expression.

edited 2nd Jun '16 12:24:56 AM by editerguy

Again, it comes down to the balance between authors and the public, and it is a bit of a sticky wicket. Here's the thing, the public domain is practically on life support these days despite more and more characters becoming part of our collective culture. Many characters and settings won't be accessible to the public creatively on an official basis like existing public domain characters within our lifetimes because of excessive copyright terms - Sherlock Holmes only recently got into the public domain because the courts in the US disagreed with the Arthur Conan Doyle estate that later Holmes works still in copyright still keep the character himself in copyright. Yes, the potential for abuse by corporations is a problem, one that has no simple answer (royalties above a set revenue threshold would be ideal except it would essentially put a limiter on how many different authors' stuff you can include in a single work due to the percentages adding up).

Quite frankly, Universal Basic Income would be the best workaround for aspects of copyright that would otherwise be necessary due to the commercial arts essentially being beholden to the free market. It won't make authors ultra-rich, but it would create stability and allow the capitalistic side of the creation of new art to be an added bonus rather than a necessity to actually get by. Though I think royalties for commercial revenues above a threshold (as long as the royalty percentage is capped and divided between copyright holders) would also be a good idea on top of that, since the amount of the royalty pie isn't nearly as big a problem when UBI is in place while still allowing authors to benefit from productions based off their works that are much more widely-marketed and profitable, while other authors can still use stuff from existing works in new and interesting ways.

As well, adding onto that, perhaps a "transformative work" label on works that use existing characters and whatnot with proper attribution would eliminate confusion and make consumers check the credits to see where the existing material came from so if they like it they can check it out for themselves, which would be good cross-promotion.

edited 3rd Jun '16 9:46:18 AM by Cronosonic

To be honest, I don't really understand what you mean when you talk about 'the rights of the public' and 'the balance between authors and the public'. Individual creators/artists are members of the public, and the rights we give to creative people are open to anyone who simply jots down a unique poem or records an original tune. Why the dichotomy?

Again, I'm a bit confused by exactly what you mean, but what about fanfiction?

As our page on Adaptation Displacement shows, adaptations don't necessarily have any value as promotions. If an individual or corporation wants to profit from someone else's work, they should pay for that right.

UBI stuff seems like a whole different discussion; Australia is currently too right-wing for that kind of reform to be plausible.

edited 4th Jun '16 5:36:09 AM by editerguy

The 'dichotomy' is mainly to distinguish the original author of a work from the rest of the public, it's not really an "us vs them" sort of thing, but rather just a way to distinguish the rights of the original author and the rights of, well, everyone else, in terms of how intellectual monopolies are handled. ^note (For the record, I'm not comfortable with the term "intellectual property", while the likes of copyright have aspects of property, other aspects, especially the expiration, make the term intellectually dishonest - for all intents and purposes, copyright, patents, trademarks, etc are government-granted monopolies. But I imagine the word 'property' is used because "monopoly" is not a word that garners sympathy, because monopolies are generally considered a market failure and an indicator of immoral business behaviour.)

Yes, fanfiction and fan-works in general exist, but are basically at the mercy of copyright holders, especially ones in the US, and are entirely restricted to non-commercial ventures.

As for Adaptation Displacement, that generally happens because of, outside of works that are adaptations of already-popular works, there is little clear indication that there was a previous work in the first place. A prominent label (and maybe even different variations of said label) would make much harder to not be aware that at least aspects of a work are based off of something else. I'm not opposed to eliminating the revenue threshold for my idea, mind you, as long as authors who don't get a lot of revenue aren't being forced to pay way too much. A balancing act is essential.

And I'd honestly disagree with the notion that Australia is too right-wing for UBI, which is becoming an increasingly raised idea in policy circles globally, including at least two European countries intending to trial it and another about to have a referendum on it. Australia itself is still a fairly egalitarian nation, as shown by responses to any response to any attempts to force budget cuts on middle to lower class welfare, which Abbot and Hockey learned the hard way, despite thinking that the Howard government changed that (spoiler alert, they failed). The case could easily be made for essentially taking the entire welfare system and condensing it into a single universal basic income scheme that eliminates most of the bureaucracy (no more standing in line at Centerlink), eliminates the distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor and whatnot, and essentially pays for itself through income, corporate, and other taxes so the rich cover the 'debt' of those who aren't able to essentially pay back their UBI through tax. Market UBI (or negative income tax, whatever flavour of "UBI" you fancy) as a system that will eliminate poverty, level the playing field and give everyone a fair go, and the electorate might actually go for it.

So I can charge someone for my derivative work while demanding that I'm not charged for using someone else's work? Doesn't seem very balanced at all.

Anyway, the question isn't whether there is a balance, the question is whether there is a benefit to artists and artistic industries. In other words, policy about art should aim primarily to encourage art. Everyone already has the right to make art, so implying a lack of rights doesn't make sense.

Have any fanfiction writers actually been prosecuted in Australia?

So people might be a bit more aware, maybe. The issue, though, is that if an original work is ultimately unprofitable for its creator (not even an uncommon thing!), your system is unfair. It certainly doesn't provide incentive. The current system is fairer.

Sorry, got carried away.

edited 5th Jun '16 2:01:30 AM by editerguy

On Australian games we really need an AFL 2K game or something...y'know one that has the level of detail that it matters what suit you wear to the draft or little cut scenes where you pick an option on field or off and it reacts accordingly.

On topic aside from the Liberal promise of jobs and growth and Labor's promise of education, it's very much the same old story of, "Under the opposing party babies will be eaten, children will be raped, monsters will kill for the sheer thrill of it." At least with the Tasmanian state election some valid points on the Greens party were brought up (the party gloated about putting an end to forestry, something Liberal leader Michael Ferguson called them out on and essentially buried any election chances they had.) But short version is...ah, Shorten is seen as weaker than Turnbull but in his words under Abbott the Liberals would lose, and there is still that stigma I think with a narrow party and preferred PM lead.

Personally, anyone who thinks, "No political mail" is too sophisticated shows that such a little thing like that means that when it comes to big issues, important issues, what the voters who gave them the job will not matter.

The election count is on. The major parties are mainly in a dead heat. Antony Green (lol) still hasn't decided on a likely outcome right now. (Barrie Cassidy is calling a hung parliament.)

Holy shit, this election is nerve-wracking.

edited 2nd Jul '16 3:30:48 AM by Cronosonic

Worse yet, it's looking like there's going to be chaos in the Senate. The new rules were supposed to prevent the sort of minor party preference deals that saw someone from the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party get elected last time. However because of the lowered voting threshold of a double dissolution election some of them are getting in on their own merits.

Former Palmer United Party loose cannon Jacqui Lambi looks to be holding her senate seat in her own merits, former Independent Nick Xenophon, now re-organised into a self named minor party, has gotten back in and picked up at least another seat for his new party, possibly two. Also (and despite not voting for her, I am in QLD and cannot apologise enough for this) Pauline Hanson has picked up a Senate Seat.

We're doomed.

edited 2nd Jul '16 4:04:43 PM by KnightofLsama

Nah, if it were Christine (we cheer every time someone we have caused to lose their job is Driven to Suicide) Milne got in then we may as well call Australia Dead Island.

Anyway looks like a hung parliament, too close to call. Instead of another vote should we just get some gallows set up?

Shit, Hanson got back in? I thought her career was over. Dammit Queensland, why!?

And it looks like we won't know who can form govt for some time.

Can we build an AI to run the show for the next ten hundred years?

edited 2nd Jul '16 7:33:55 PM by editerguy

I think part of her popularity comes through that in this day and age she comes across as more moderate and race issues are more palatable. With ISIS and Muslims there is that heightened fear and we have, what, Take Back Australia, anti Islam groups. Hanson is a saint in comparison.

She's explicitly appealed to fear/hatred of Asians, Aborigines, Africans and Muslims. Typical white supremacist stuff. If that is now moderate in Australia, we're in trouble.

edited 2nd Jul '16 10:30:01 PM by editerguy

Little bit. I can't say I blame people for being scared but when we have the protests and riots like we've had then that is going too far.

I think the 24 hour news and drumming up fear is partially to blame: if thus election ' s scare campaigns are 10/10 for You Can Panic Now then I would rate some reports on terrorism at least a 4 or 5.

She has called for, and I quote, an "inquiry or Royal Commission to determine if Islam is a religion or political ideology".

Her targets may have changed somewhat, but it that's coming of as "more moderate" then I'd like to know what dictionary you're using?