Digital Copyright: It's All Wrong

A draft treaty proposes draconian measures to protect copyright.

Crime Series Pays For Lawyers, Pirates

IT IS one of the most expensive Australian miniseries ever produced. Now it looks as though the people who will benefit most from it are lawyers and the criminal world that it portrays.

Farewell To Broadcaster Loved By Writers And Readers

THE guardians of writing turned out to farewell Andrea Stretton in Sydney yesterday. Packed into St Canice's Church were poets, publishers, critics, agents, copyright lawyers, actors, free speech campaigners, journalists and librarians who loved Stretton and worship books.

Lawyers Stir The Murky Depths Of Plagiarism

I t didn't take long for the lawyers to sniff blood. And to the detached observer it wasn't all that surprising. Last Sunday Steve Baker won Tropfest for his animated short about a blue blob called Andrew and his imaginary friend. The trouble is that Andrew looks very similar to an American animated series about a blue blob called Bloo who lives in a home for imaginary friends.

Networks Protest As Ruddock Considers Overhaul Of Copyright Laws

THE guilty pleasures of taping Desperate Housewives and watching it later or listening to your jazz collection on your iPod could shortly become legal under changes to copyright law being considered by the Howard Government.

Networks Protest Over Plan For Copyright Law Changes

THE guilty pleasures of taping Desperate Housewives and watching it later or listening to your jazz collection on your iPod could shortly become legal under changes to copyright law being considered by the Howard Government.

It's Open Sesame, Lawyers

Lawyers could lead techies when the licence that underpins all open source software gets its first revision in 15 years.

Goossens, Witches, Opera: Lawyers Love It

If your partner was described as a man ``into some really, really heavy black magic" that was ``very sexual, quite amazing", you might think of contacting your lawyers.

Copyright Changes A Headache For Bosses

If your boss likes to take the credit for your ideas, a remedy might be at hand. Copyright law changes introduced to protect the moral rights of artists and writers now apply to workplaces nationally, a legal expert says.

Copyright Debate Heats Up

WHAT a nest of vipers my comments on copyright in the digital age stirred up. In this column last week, I said that I believed copyright would prove to be a temporary phenomenon in human history. I opined that technology would make copying so easy and so pervasive that intellectual content would

Digital Copyright Debate Heats Up

WHAT a nest of vipers my comments on copyright in the digital age stirred up. In this column last week, I said that I believed copyright would prove to be a temporary phenomenon in human history. I opined that technology would make copying so easy and so pervasive that intellectual content would

New Copyright Law Is 'not Enough'

COPYRIGHT on the Internet still depends on people respecting others' rights, but that shouldn't stop publishers from using technical protections if they have to, according to a from RMIT. John Lambrick told a US conference on intellectual property that even new laws about to be passed to protect

Student Fights University's Copyright Rule

BE WARNED: enrolling at a university could mean signing away your copyright. For everything. Just about every university in Australia has developed policies on intellectual property that are so broad it gives them the right to tap the brains of their best and brightest students. That's the l

Us Company Has Big Win On Copyright

ALTHOUGH it takes creativity to write a good software program, it is still a curious fact that, in Australia, computer programmers are put in the same category as poets and novelists to protect their work from copyright thieves. In a landmark decision in the Federal Court on February 9, the US c

Not Easy, But Copyright Law Is Reality, Not Myth

INTERNET folklore would have it that the Net renders copyright law irrelevant. Although this view is a myth, it is true that the impact of traditional copyright rules is increasingly unpredictable and that enforcement is difficult. This will be the case even after national copyright laws are amen

Legal Wrangle Over Wine Books

IT was the kind of legal contretemps that even copyright lawyers have nightmares about. Established wine book author Robin Bradley, whose Australian and New Zealand Wine Vintages book is about to rack up total sales of 450,000 copies, was upset at a newcomer's entry into the same field. He consid

A Tangle Of Tapes

A recent High Court decision has revived the vexed issue of home taping as technology leaps ahead of the copyright lawyers. VIRGINIA TRIOLI reports. YOU have to read the advertisements for Philip's snappy new digital compact cassette rather closely to notice it, but the careful disclaimer is the

Suing Circles - A Lawyers' Picnic

RICHARD BURTON, the author and orientalist (not the Welsh actor) wrote: "Our wrangling lawyers are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell." Most would consider Burton over-charitable in his estimatio

Copyright Case Reopened

IMPORTANT computer copyright issues - which most observers had believed settled with changes to the Copyright Act in 1984 - may be about to resurface in Australia, a leading computer industry figure has warned. The 1984 laws have been seen as a major barrier to software piracy and have als

Writs To Make Lawyers Richer

THE WORLD of computer litigation rolls on, bringing gladness to the hearts of lawyers and sadness to the rest of us. Latest news from the legal front: * In San Jose, California, venue of choice for computer litigants, Advanced Micro Devices has filed a suit claiming patent infringements ag