200 Aussie Acts Protest ‘Safe Harbour’ Changes

Currently, these apply to internet service providers (ISPs) who do not profit when a customer uploads copyrighted content without permission.

As Australian law stands, ISPs cannot be sued for copyright infringement because they are considered merely pipelines. But plans to expand the provision to YouTube and Facebook, which do profit, without consulting the music community saw a backlash. Among signatures on an advertisement in The Australian newspaper were INXS, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, Gotye, John Farnham, Human Nature, Neil Finn, and Jessica Mauboy. The letter stated the changes would “chip away” at their “right to be remunerated fairly for their creative endeavours.”

Their concern is that it will make it more difficult to enforce their copyright against online businesses and negotiate proper reimbursement for use of their music.

Vanessa Hutley, general manager for Music Rights Australia, asks, “Why is the government making these controversial changes to the safe harbour regime without giving the creative community, which will be directly affected by them, the chance to drive the same kind of positive outcome? We don’t know.”

But tech giants such as Google, Yahoo and Twitter claim they know. They’ve written to the government to support the change, saying it will “free up” business from “legal risk and uncertainty.”