Australia Has Copyright Laws – Flouting them Deters Innovation and Creativity.
The Intellectual Property Problem
affects just about every small business in Australia today, particularly if you have a website. The goodwill in your business is a form of intellectual property too.
It’s a matter ignored by politics and poorly understood in the community. It is also a highly emotive issue, both for and against.
But it is an issue Australia can ignore no longer.
This is not going to go away and involves crimes that touches each and every one of us.
To avoid the inevitable and irrelevant discussion on the nature of the crime, let me make this perfectly clear.
Every country in the Berne Copyright Convention – and yes, Australia is a signatory – has copyright laws. While these laws vary slightly, they are consistent in respecting creativity and innovation. Generally, using works – including everything in the digital domain – without the permission of the owner:
1. Is a criminal offence.
2. Infringes or violates the rights of the owner or creator of the work.
3. Can lead to jail or large fines or both.
4. Allows the holder of the work at their option to seek damages using civil law for loss or hardship, and to institute criminal proceedings.
So, the law internationally sees it consistently as a violation or infringement of rights if any person uses or takes items so covered without permission of the copyright owner. This includes: books, movies, music and software, poetry, photographs, images, data in some instances, substantial text, paintings, sculpture, pottery and so on.
Copyright in Australia requires no registration and exists from the moment of “creation” of the work. This is regardless of whether a copyright notice is placed, claimed or referred to and regardless of whether or not the © symbol is used or displayed, unless the owner specifically states in writing that such rights are waived.
For the lovers of semantics the reference to “substantial text” can be applied to any body of work, regardless of it’s perceived quality.
Glib comments disparaging the quality of a work and concluding therefore it has no protection under copyright are merely childish.
A sentence is not copyright – though it may be covered by Trademark – whereas an article such as this is automatically extended copyright cover.
Organized Crime
Iincreasingly, individuals illegally downloading content with file sharing tools like Limewire, Kazaa and torrent tools like Azureas are being detected and prosecuted in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. It is only a matter of time before prosecutions become more common in Australia. The stakes (and the losses) are too big for companies and individuals producing intellectual property to ignore.
An ironic benefit, to the average person, from this enforcement is that by not using tools such as these they limit their exposure to viruses, trojans and malware which literally fill the services that offer cracks, keygens, serial numbers (often written serialz) and circumvention of DRM – Digital Rights Management, all of which aid in the copyright circumvention of owned music, video and software.
It is not illegal to have these downloading tools on your computer. They do in fact have legal and valid uses.
But it becomes illegal when they are used to access items without the permission of the copyright holder.
That many of the circumvention tools – cracks, keygens etc – are created by organized crime groups such as the Russian Business Network or RBN is also significant.
The Arguments Against Intellectual Property Protection
Objections to copyright protection seem to be most strongly voiced by those who hold no creative works. Whereas those who do and are affected are among the most passionate supporters of copyright law.
Most arguments against IP revolve around semantics. Every time the topic is discussed, it seems, its critics throw out:
1. “It’s not theft because nothing tangible is stolen”.
2. “It’s not piracy, piracy means rape and plunder at sea”.
3. “Software is different to music and films”
4. “The statistics for IP infringement are wrong, I do not accept them.”
On the last point they generally refuse to produce any evidence to back up their dismissal of evidence. Then they move to announcing they’ve “won the argument” by resorting to their first point. This is circuitous logic. It becomes infantile to debate this when they insist on using these arguments – which is entirely the point of them using them.
The first three points are entirely irrelevant. It’s the act that is illegal and remains illegal no matter how desperately one tries to align it to other crimes – comparing apples to oranges is simply futile.
With point four – software is no different to music, movies, books or art. It meets the requirements of the Berne Convention and the individual laws of countries that apply it – such as Australia.
To argue about a magical perceived “difference” is to divert the argument – a rather common technique employed by people on shaky legal ground. This argument does not hold up in a court of law.
The simplest argument for justifying the protections of Copyright Law, for which one never receives a reply (with the possible exception of those who burst into expletives in rage) is -
“As soon as you and everybody else goes to work for free, and that doesn’t include a government pension, and manage to eat, pay for a roof over your head and care for your family I’ll consider the possibility of doing the same.”
This infuriates opponents as they are being asked to do exactly what they demand of those who make a living through the creation of intellectual property.
In other words “putting their money where their mouth is” or “eating their own dog food”.
Those who claim “Intellectual Property wants to be free” are operating under a severe deficit. They don’t really believe this though. It’s merely a way to express a socialist doctrine: that the creative process should not be a business endeavor. An inverted piece of socialism that borders on anarchy.
The Need For Intellectual Property Protection
It doesn’t matter whether you’re creating paintings, pottery, books, magazines, movies, music or software, individuals need strong and enforced copyright laws and in specific instances patent protection.
Without those laws and their committed enforcement no one can make a living on the Internet – the commerce channel of now and the future.
In practice, our legal system is soft on intellectual property prosecution. It does not always recognise the extent of the problem of intellectual property violation online.
In order for these protections to work, our court system must enforce the law and its reparations.
If the court system treats it lightly the community will too. If a crime is free of consequences, then the seriousness of the crime is diminished.
Simply put there is no data these thieves are prepared to accept. Not past, present or future. Copyright holders, small businesses and large cannot have a reasonable, logical discussion with them while the antagonists of copyright law engage in this stupidity.
But make no mistake here. They do not give a flying fig for you, your family or small business – including your children and your children’s children should they choose to earn an honest living through the creation of intellectual property.
A Concern For All Australians
Copyright protection affects us all, whoever produces the material.
We are entering an era where the internet plays an enormous role in the economy, much bigger than now.
Unless the work of those who make the things we use are properly rewarded, the collective possibilities of the internet will be permanently diminished.
Small business and individuals – too small to influence government and the opponents of copyright laws – who do not have recourse to a legal system to ensure their right to earn a living will have to seek employment in other fields.
That means the end of new music, videos, art, software and books.
Creators do have to eat.
Current Penalties
For readers who do not appreciate that stealing creativity is a crime, below I have reproduced two extracts from Copyright Australia as a brief introduction and by way of conclusion to this article. I have merely scratched the surface of this matter. It is deep, complex and worthy of further consideration.
The extracts below link to further documents. I highly recommend you read them.
Note that in at least one instance an Australian citizen was extradited to the United States for copyright infringement.
Scott Kane
Socialism or Economic Engineering? Australian Banking Needs a Fifth Pillar.
Australia doesn’t have enough banks. The big four banks hold 92 per cent of the market and have grown lazy, fat and flabby – charging high fees and taking wide margins (the difference between loan interest rates and deposit rates).
They do this because they can; they can because customers have nowhere else to go.
With only four players, all can compete by advertising and not on price. In economic language, they are oligarchs operating a cartel. There is no collusion – they don’t need to – they simply signal to each other with market announcements.
What are our sisters doing?
Across the Tasman Sea, New Zealand has created a government owned bank called Kiwibank. It is tearing market share off the majors, all subsidiaries of the same four Aussie banks, by offering good deposit interest rates and cheap mortgages.
In Canada, the government has long refused mergers between its five major banks on competition grounds. This makes them work for their money and provides Canadian citizens genuine alternatives.
It would be easy to create a bank on the distribution capacity of Australia Post, perhaps merged with a regional bank to kick-start the process. It could begin with a simple set of deposit and loan products. And where it did compete on price, exactly how fond we are of our oligarch banks would be quickly revealed.
If that sounds rather too Socialist, the government could undertake to float the new bank on the Australian Stock Exchange once it is established and stable, while announcing a new ‘five pillar’ no-merger policy.
Look upon it as economic engineering, an opportunity to re-introduce a genuinely competitive financial market in Australia.
A fifth major Australian bank. I’d like to see that!
The author holds ANZ shares.
Australia’s NBN will be aerial, not wireless; cheap not secure. Feed Senator Conroy to the Possums!
Australia desperately needs the new National Broadband Network. Our business and social communications labor under two impediments: the tyranny of distance and lousy internet speeds. Lousy!
The cost of the NBN is staggering – $43 billion and rising; the cost of not installing it promises to be higher. Our ability to play a meaningful role in world affairs utterly depends on the quality of our communications network.
Minister for Communications senator Conroy has found a way to cut the capital outlay: aerial cabling.
That’s right. Slung underneath the minimum five wires of three phase power and Foxtel’s cable that pass every house in built-up areas, will be our broadband connection.
So every street tree will have to be pruned even harder (remember the tree vandalism when the Foxtel cables went up). With our big houses, small blocks and extensive paving, street trees are usually the most important shading and cooling feature we have available.
The US Defense Department designed the internet’s decentralized network to survive a nuclear war. Your connection will be at the mercy of possums, tree branches, bushfires and passing trucks. This vital service will not be reliable enough.
And (Ahem!) extra aerial cabling will lower property values by reducing the amenity and aesthetics of your street.
Conroy thinks this is progress. He is protecting the nation from wasteful spending.
Think again, senator Conroy.
We don’t have to dig trenches everywhere. There has been significant advances in laser-guided horizontal boring – you will have seen the equipment on the streets –that minimize disruption and are LOW COST.
We could underground all the electric wires at the same time. I’d like to see that!
Victorian & Australian Small Business – All The Risks, No Security, No Respect But Truckloads of Government Red Tape
The Brumby Labor Government has been spending big on advertising to put a positive spin on their failed and stupid water policies.
- A desalination plant in the beautiful Powllet River region ( my favourite fishing and camping spot, along with thousands of other Victorians).
- Pipelines from the North to the South to carry water that doesn’t exist.
It goes on and on. Millions of dollars spent for a variety of portfolios including the name – must have been selected in jest - “Department of Sustainability and Environment.”
But calls to assist the real economy, the small business sector…
Nothing.
It’s a disgrace when suburban and regional small businesses are baring the brunt of recession. Semantics aside, the depth of the recession is irrelevant. The reality is while small businesses risk bankruptcy, Brumby and his herd of feral ne’er-do-well ministers are busy looking for photo opportunities under gum trees and explaining why the people of the Goulburn Valley don’t need to drink as much as people in Melbourne – where the votes are – and all this is by accident?
The Liberal Party is too busy climbing into bed, donning gaudy political mascara, lipstick and rouge – again – in order to become corporation tarts for the likes of Phillip Morris ( who are drug dealers by any definition) to ensure the next round of corporate electoral campaign funding falls to them.
The Greens are, well…
They’re being the Greens. They’ve nothing to say on “small business”. I’ve come to the conclusion Senator Bob Brown must have told them, in some fuzzy furry animal-in-the-forest bed time story, that anything with the word “business” in it was dirty, nasty and sleazy. Because they cringe when it’s mentioned and never say it in public. Say the word “businesses” around Greens and you’re basically threatening their fantasy of the world moving to a time where we all frolic in the fields with the unicorns and elves; food magically grows on trees and we all live happily in mud brick round houses and bark humpies.
I mean – what else are we to think?
Small Business Takes The Risks – Big Business Pockets The Dollars
Small business entrepreneurs large and small abound. Victoria has a rich history, present, and one hopes, future in small business. Some of the best known Victorian small businesses became “big businesses”. Companies such as Ansett, Myers and many more. But they couldn’t do it now because our Brumby government dances for different masters: Corporations.
While regulation has been piled on by both Federal and State governments – have you read the Tax Act? – nothing constructive has been done at all for small business expansion. For small business survival.
Instead we’ve got expensive, repetitive propaganda campaigns about Labour’s “success” on water and environment that fools nobody – except out of touch politicians.
The conservatives have criticised Labor for their advertising, but they haven’t named it for what it is – largesse. That’s because they’d do exactly the same. Oh – the policy may be structurally different, but the beneficiary remains the incumbent.
It’s Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday and I’ll Help Myself all in one neat, prettily wrapped, tax payer funded, advertising – love in.
It’s quite common when discussing this issue to breezily dismiss small business concerns with “business shouldn’t get a handout”. But we’re not talking about “handouts”. We’re talking about decent infrastructure and a level playing field.
Differential Pricing And Credit
The bigger you are the better the price. Not because you buy more, not all corporations buy more of what they get cheaper, but because they are so darn big. They are so big they insist the supplier offer it to them at a cheaper rate. This practice compresses small business margins before they even open the door!
Banks have tightened their credit scores. That sounds nice, it sounds economically rational. But small businesses have to use the family home as equity.
Need more finance – “Oh, we’ve already got your house, what else have you got?”
No more assets = no more credit = no further equity and you’re out of business. Your employees are out of a job, your suppliers are out a customer, the rest of the community is out of another service.
Small businesses take all the risk. Their value to the community is essential, they provide all the variable supply and demand big business or corporations never pay attention to.
Essential!
Complex government reporting requirements are easy for corporations with their army of accountants and clerks. But for the small business person of Victoria it’s a major headache, unproductive, unnecessary nonsense that justifies bureaucracy. And this migraine carries criminal consequences if they fail to dot every “i” and cross every “t”.
Then there’s the cost of dealing with local and state government rules and laws on environmental issues that are virtually flaunted by corporations.
The Australian Greens will roast you for daring to complain, but are ineffective and relatively silent on corporations who don’t comply.
Why is this?
If your name is “Gunn” you can probably find a friendly cabinet minister to take you under his wing and concede the environment loves being pulped and bleached. If you’re a small businesses person – good luck with finding a cabinet minister, let alone a “wing”!
We’ve seen what corporations do to small business. The loss of independent petrol stations, the annihilation of the independent supermarket. Right now we can see both of these face the double whammy of the enormous Coles and Woolworths corporations doing their best to run an economic pogrom against both independent petrol stations and general food retailers simultaneously!
Where are the corner butcher shops, Deli’s, milk bars and super markets all run by small business Victorians? There are still a few holdouts left – but most have gone. I began my career in the supermarket industry in management and information technology. Victoria was known in Australia as the “supermarket state” because of our wealth of independently run supermarkets.
They are all but gone now.
Economy sucking oligarchies slurp unwarranted margins simply because they control the supply chain. Whether we are talking about manufactured goods or fresh produce. Indeed the “deal” given to our rural small business men and women – the farmers – is a sick joke. They pay these hard working Australian’s mere cents for the fruit of their labour, frequently produce created on credit that must be repaid to banks, and then mark them up to the consumer in their oligarchial stores often by hundreds of percent! Ripping off the farmer, the small business and the consumer.
We are supposed to accept this, nay, thank them in appreciation! It’s a disgrace when we consider they are supported in their efforts by the very people paying lip service to the voter. To the small business people placing their necks on the platform of Australia’s economic future only to discover it’s an economic guillotine, and then to be decapitated by:
- Red Tape
- Corporate Funding of Political Parties to buy representation they are not entitled to under our constitution.
- Greens running around local councils introducing by-laws that support their mythical position on the environment and their terror of the word “business”.
- Early 20th Century transport infrastructure that fails to get their employees from home to work and back again, while corporations seek bailouts for their economic bad management, enabling them to consider whether or not they should lay off a few more workers. Hello GMH!!
We have a state election coming in Victoria. We can’t afford to allow this joke at our expense to continue. Victorian Labor blames the Victorian Liberals for their time in office. The Liberals blame Labor.
The Greens – they’re not present in debates on small or large business unless it relates to a position on the environment – at which point they pontificate pointlessly for several hours before voting “No”.
I’m tired of the Labor, Liberal and Greens poking holes in the air about nothing, posing for photo opportunities in front of gum trees, lining the pockets of corporations in return for huge corporate electoral campaign funding and pandering to a minority of inner city environmentalists.
Small Business deserves better.
Scott Kane
The Australian two-speed economy – fierce competition for SME’s, none for the oligarchs. We need surgery by the ACCC
The vast majority of Australian small and medium sized businesses face white-hot competition and engage in a fierce struggle to gain and hold customers. This is considered a good thing – it keeps costs down and spurs continual innovation.
Competitive pressures are a major source of productivity, higher incomes and national wealth.
But there is another group who enjoy the quiet life of stable high margins and limited competitive pressures: the oligarchs.
There are the money-making ‘heroes’ who can dictate terms to their suppliers, customers and competitors and can defy substitute products.
A common economists’ measure of oligarchy is where the top four firms together enjoy more that 80 per cent of any market.
Let’s see: that includes the banks, the oil companies, gas and electricity utilities, fertilizer producers, cardboard manufacturers, steelmakers, supermarkets, media… Is my list complete? Far from it!
Economic reform – what a wonderful idea. Nice when it happens to others; something to be deeply suspicious of when it threatens you and your livelihood. But if that livelihood comes from playing monopoly, economic surgery is required.
Our protection is Graeme Samuel and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, who are responsible for reviewing industry mergers and cartel busting.
The Democrats believe the ACC should be given a sharp knife to require divestments in cases of market failure. We have long championed small business in their battles with oligarchs – going as far back as our battle for small petrol retailers against the oil companies.
Don’t look for competition support from the L/NP conservatives. They sell influence to industry lobbyists. If you can’t afford a lobbyist, you cant influence their decisions.
And don’t look for competition support from the ALP, either. They have been infected by the conservatives’ disease – money buys privilege.
Some commentators wring their hands and describe Australia as a small, weak economy with a small population. Ahemmn. We are the 14th largest economy in the world and big enough and tough enough and smart enough to resist oligarchs… aren’t we?
