Over the course of 18 months the ALRC received 870 public and 139 confidential submissions and undertook 109 consultations with a full range of stakeholders. It concluded that the current exceptions in the copyright act had not kept pace with changes in technology and practice, and made recommendations for pragmatic reform.
In February 2014 the Government released the final report Copyright and the Digital Economy. The Report contains 30 recommendations for reform. The main recommendations were:
- Replacing many of the current ‘purpose based’ copyright exceptions with a flexible ‘fair use’ exception
- If fair use is not implemented, the introduction of extended fair dealing exceptions
- Reform and clarification of specific copyright exceptions for government, judicial and library use
- Simplification of the statutory licences for education and government
- Limitation on remedies for use of orphan works provided a diligent search has been carried out
- Internet retransmission and broadcasting to be looked at when developing media and communications policy
- Preserving some specific exceptions from being overridden by contract, but not the fair use exception
These recommendations are supported by schools, universities, cultural institutions, consumer organisation, libraries, tech companies and organisations assisting the blind and visually impaired.
The ADA made two joint submissions to the ALRC with our sister organisation the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee. You can find these two below.