Joint submission in response to the Disability and Other Measures Bill exposure draft

The Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) and the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee (ALCC) strongly support the policy reforms proposed by the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill. We feel these are important changes that provide significant benefits for Australian consumers and businesses. They will particularly benefit the cultural, educational, disability and technology sectors.

This submission sets out comments and recommended changes regarding the exact drafting decisions for some of the proposed reforms. We also strongly support extending the proposed new provisions for determining the term of unpublished and orphaned works to audiovisual materials, which we do not see as warranting different treatment than either their published counterparts, or traditional works.

As outlined in the ADA’s submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Australia’s Intellectual Property Arrangements, we believe that a number of other amendments are needed to ensure we have a fully efficient, effective and appropriately balanced copyright law in Australia. The amendments contained in this exposure draft, however, will have make a measurable improvement to a number of outstanding problem areas.