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Education, Cultural and Tech Sectors Support Safe Harbour Extension

On Friday, a diverse group of 25 organisations from across the Australian education, cultural and technology sectors wrote to Senator Fifield, Minister for Communications and the Arts, congratulating him on proposed changes to Australia’s copyright law which will foster innovation and provide much needed legal certainty for Australia's schools, universities, libraries and online service providers.

The proposed changes, which are set out in the exposure draft of the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill, extend the ISP safe harbour already set out in the Copyright Act to all organisations which provide online services for others. If these changes are passed, Australia’s schools, universities and libraries will receive the same legal protections as commercial ISPs when they provide internet access for their staff, students and the general public, and our businesses will no longer be at a competitive disadvantage to their international peers who already receive these protections. The changes will benefit both service providers and copyright owners by providing a clear and streamlined process for notifying intermediaries about infringing materials shared online.
 
You can see the full letter below, and a summary of the changes proposed by the Bill in our blog post here.