Extending the Safe Harbour copyright scheme in Australia

Topics Copyright

CAUL welcomes changes to Australia’s copyright laws introduced by the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill 2017 which passed both houses of Parliament on the 27th June 2018. The Bill will extend the safe harbour provisions in the Copyright Act to the disability, education, library, archive and cultural sectors.

CAUL provided a written response to the inquiry on 30th January 2018, which stated that:

CAUL strongly supports the amendments to the Act that would extend the scope of the safe harbour scheme to enable the ‘notice and take down’ system to apply to universities, libraries and archives. This would bring us, as service providers, into alignment with the for-profit ISPs who are currently covered as ‘carriage service providers.

The simplified process of ‘notice and take down’ to remove or disable access to infringing material should also protect and benefit copyright owners by providing a straightforward and cost-effective alternative to a court order.

Media about the Bill:

For media enquiries please contact Harry Rolf on +61 2 6125 2990 or caul@caul.edu.au

Author Harry Rolf

Last modified 4 July 2018