Australian tech start-ups stand to lose out in proposed copyright reforms
Australia’s strict copyright laws are already preventing content startups from blossoming, and the new reforms will do nothing to help matters, writes Kylie Pappalardo in this crossposting from The Conversation.
The Australian government quietly introduced the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill 2017 to the Senate on Wednesday. If enacted, the bill will extend the scope of Australia’s copyright safe harbours – very slightly.
Safe harbours protect internet hosts and platform providers from monetary liability for copyright-infringing content posted or shared by their users. For example, if you post the latest Thor movie to YouTube, YouTube won’t be responsible for copyright infringement if it takes down that video. In Australia, we only extend this protection to internet services providers, not general purpose websites.
This matters because technology firms rely on limits to liability to manage their risks. Companies like Facebook or YouTube, which host millions of pieces of user content, would face serious difficulty starting in Australia because our laws on copyright infringement are so strict.
