🚀 go-pugleaf

Kieron Briggs wrote:

> Schedule 9, item 154: This creates a new criminal offence 'significant
> infringement of copyright'. This is of concern to software developers
> because it makes conduct that _results_in_ copyright infringement, even
> if that conduct is not in itself an infringement of copyright.
> 
> For example, if Alice writes a software program to play music from a CD,
> and then Bob uses that software to copy a CD to his hard drive and makes
> it available over a P2P network, then Alice could be charged under the
> new offence, even though it was Bob that infringed copyright.

I don't think the courts would be willing to interpret "results in" that 
widely, particarly in the context of a criminal offence. Such a wide 
interpretation would outlaw pretty much every activity associated with 
making and selling computers.

> Schedule 9, item 186-9: These items extend current copyright law to
> include temporary copies of data (for example, the chunk of audio data
> held in RAM by your CD player). 

Which is neither the complete work, nor a substantial part of it.

> Although copying "as part of a technical
> process of use" do not infringe copyright, the definition of "use" is
> muddy enough that things like moving a song to an iPod (etc) may be
> infringing, due to the copies made in the computer's RAM, the 
> USB/firewire chipset buffers, the cable itself, and so on. This may have
> significant impact on the way software is able to access such data,
> especially in the future as new forms of storage are developed.

Again, I can't see the courts adopting a narrow interpretation.
> 
> These items also do not exempt copying as a process of use where the
> original is infringing. This means that an end-user of 'pirated' 
> material becomes infringing, where previously it was only the person who
> produced the original who was infringing.

I don't really see the objection to catching this conduct. In the case 
where the infringer didn't know that the original was infringing, and 
could reasonably believe that it was not, the defence of honest and 
reasonable belief would exist, so it's not as if this criminalises 
innocent people.

Sylvia.