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posted by janrinok on Thursday June 18 2015, @09:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the quote-this-in-your-defence dept.

The Australian government passed the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 late last night, which is meant to deter piracy, enable site blocking and more. Interestingly, he appears to have a lot to say about where the bill will NOT apply however - especially taking time to comment on VPN use (which is skyrocketing in Australia):

"VPNs have a wide range of legitimate purposes, not least of which is the preservation of privacy — something which every citizen is entitled to secure for themselves — and [VPN providers] have no oversight, control or influence over their customers' activities." Turnbull said. The Communications Minister went on to give the example of an Australian consumer using a VPN to 'trick' a U.S.-based site into thinking they were located inside the United States. "This Australian could then — and this is widely done — purchase the content in the normal way with a credit card. The owner of the Australian rights to the content so acquired might well be quite unhappy about that, but they could take a remedy against the American site or the underlying owner of the rights. This bill does not apply to a site like this. It is not intended to apply to VPNs." Turnbull confirmed, and then continued "If Australian rights owners have got issues about American sites selling content to Australians in respect of which they do not have Australian rights, they should take it up with them. The big boys can sort it out between themselves and leave the consumers out of it."


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:17PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:17PM (#198025)

    For VPNs, it doesn't matter how well the native network in Australia works. Online content sellers still see which IP block you're coming from and charge you differently just because you're in a different country, or refuse you access altogether. The only way around that is VPNs, so that an Australian user can appear to be in the US. The Australian government has no control over that.

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  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:29PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Thursday June 18 2015, @11:29PM (#198031) Journal

    You are absolutely correct. The issue I had was that the government seems to censor and delay deployment of improvements. My thinking is that the government should keep their hands out of content, facilitate fiber upgrades and keep ISPs in check.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Friday June 19 2015, @03:24AM

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Friday June 19 2015, @03:24AM (#198095)

      We in New Zealand have it even worse.
      We had a nationally owned Post Office, which ran the phone system, which we sold for 3 magic beans when anyone could tell it was going to be worth a huge amount of money.
      Then we had a monopoly phone/cell/internet provider. Then another company entered the market and we had a duopoly.
      Then the Labour Government decided to regulate the market and roll out a new national fibre network, paid for by taxpayers, but not including the two dominant players. Yay! competition.
      NO! Labour lost the election before they could pass legislation, so the new National did what it had always done in the past and protected the incumbent players from competition by paying them the $1.4 billion to build the network.
      End result, no network to speak of, and among the slowest most expensive internet access in the world.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by NoMaster on Friday June 19 2015, @05:16AM

        by NoMaster (3543) on Friday June 19 2015, @05:16AM (#198126)

        Y'know, that's pretty much what happened in Australia.

        The only real differences are that we created our own duopoly competitor by selling the government satellite company for 3 magic beans, and then we sold the phone system back to the people at an extortionate price...

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        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 19 2015, @06:51PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 19 2015, @06:51PM (#198360) Journal

          Time to upset the market somehow?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday June 19 2015, @03:05AM

    by frojack (1554) on Friday June 19 2015, @03:05AM (#198087) Journal

    Still, it seems like a remarkably open stance for Turnbull to take give the amount of filtering and blocking that government want's to impose.

    I suspect this statement gets rolled back and eviscerated as soon as he figures out what he actually said.

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    • (Score: 2) by glyph on Friday June 19 2015, @06:03AM

      by glyph (245) on Friday June 19 2015, @06:03AM (#198134)

      I suspect this statement gets rolled back and eviscerated as soon as he figures out what he actually said.

      I doubt it, he's been saying the same thing for as long as he's been communications minister.

      I think it's actually official party "messaging". This way the government gets to pass whatever laws the copyright lobby demands while appearing to be sticking up for the consumer.

      I mean, just look at this submission! He just passed egregious regulations expanding internet censorship and even on a tech site like soylent coverage is about what a stand up bloke he is.