Talk:History of fair use proposals in Australia

Moving article from draft to mainspace

One of the outcomes from a discussion on the Australian Wikipedians' notice board about Fair Use earlier this year was that Wikipedia needs an encyclopedic article on the subject. This article represents an attempt to address that need. I have transferred it from draft to mainspace as notability has been established, and the article is well sourced. I would encourage editors interested in the subject to continue editing to ensure the article's neutrality. Nev1 (talk) 16:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Ludlam bill

Hi Wittylama, the Ludlum bill second sentence reads a bit iffy to me. Should it be more like... As it was not a government bill, and did not proceed to a vote, it lapsed in November of that year on the day of the installation of the new parliament following the 2013 federal election. JennyOz (talk) 07:07, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Dear JennyOz - I've made the change you suggest (diff). Do please feel free to make any further copyediting or other such improvements directly. Sincerely, Wittylama 11:14, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Self-referencing of Wikipedia

Yesterday a subsection called "Involvement of Wikipedia" was added (diff) as a 2nd level subheading to the article after the "government inquiries" and before the "use cases" sections. I have gone in and being bold removed it on the basis that is disproportionate weighting, unduely self-referential, and recentist - diff. If the Wikipedia campaign is credited in a reliable source as having been influential in any political outcome on the issue, only then would I suggest that it might be worthwhile making a more detailed description.

As the primary author of THIS Wikipedia article, and also the primary protagonist of Wikipedia's banner campaign in support of the Productivity Commission's recommendations, obviously I am highly personally involved, which is why I'm bringing this question here overtly. On the one hand I'm working hard to garner that advocacy campaign attention - and I've listed all the press articles about it in a list on Meta. But on the other hand as a Wikipedian I don't think the mere fact that this website is promoting the issue is worthy of a whole subsection. At best it deserves a mention, in passing, in the Productivity Commission subsection while simultaneously adding a mention of CHOICE's equivalent campaign in 2014 to support the ALRC report. That, I believe with my 'wikipedian hat' on, should be the most either campaign ought to be mentioned. On that basis I have made this edit. I hope that makes sense :-) Wittylama 13:23, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

would library campaigns also be applicable topics for this article, such as the 2015 cooking for copyright campaign? --122.108.141.214 (talk) 22:55, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I hesitate to be the authority on which activism/promotion campaigns (for or against) on this issue should or shouldn't be mentioned, for the reasons I described above. But if you could point to a third-party and mainstream-media article that proves that campaign happened, it could be used to make a passing reference in the article, yes. Wittylama 14:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Cooking for Copyright wasn't a fair use campaign - it was about the perpetual copyright on unpublished works. Those reforms incidentally are due to pass into law on Thursday 15 June Trishhepworth (talk) 17:32, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

It's not a simple case of mere self-referencing. A Google news search reveals numerous articles available to the public with headlines to the effect of "Wikipedia Is Joining The Fight" or "Wikipedia calls for Fair Use provision". They are exactly those articles you have on your Meta. Unlike other entires where Wikipedia is simply an encyclopedic repository, in this case Wikipedia is an interested party (because of the banner campaign) and this section declares that interest. Readers are well-served by a declaration of interest. It's not relevant whether the campaign is influential – it's already relevant that the campaign exists. The deleted section should be restored. Soniamaddox (talk) 12:54, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Which is why I took the reference that you used - the Peter Martin article, which is indeed the Most directly-relevant and mainstream media source, and integrated it as a short sentence near the bottom of the Productivity Commission section. And, I did the same with a reference to the CHOICE campaign a couple of years earlier in the ALRC section. So yes, the existence of the Wikipedia campaign is now directly acknowledged within the article. But, to give the WP campaign it's own subsection - or indeed anything more than passing notice - would be to be self-serving I feel. And, as it's coordinator, I'm the person with the most vested interest to big-note the Wikipedia campaign! :-) I mean - we wouldn't give the 2014 CHOICE campaign a whole subheading, so why should we give Wikipedia a whole subheading? Wittylama 14:46, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I understand, thank you. But did you also delete the sentence about how the media coverage of the campaign has received criticism from the Australian Copyright Council, and the corresponding citation? I can't see it, if it's there. Would you restore that, for the balance of coverage? I would consider the cited article an expert opinion, regardless of whether I (or you) agree with it. So I think best to restore it. Soniamaddox (talk) 04:18, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, in making my aforementioned edit to acknowledge the current campaign (and the 2014 Choice campaign) I did remove the sentence which noted that copyright organisations criticised the campaign. I did this on the basis of keeping the reference to the campaign short, and also because A) I figure that it goes without saying that copyright organisations oppose/contest it and B) that the IP collecting societies' opinion in this issue is already referenced in each section of the article. However, if you think it is important to specifically make a counterpoint note on the Wikipedia campaign is opposed by the copyright organisations, can I suggest we not use the May 25 Business Insider article. Instead I recommend we use the June 1 Honi Soit article, which also has direct quotes, as the reference.

This is where I will again overtly flag my non-objectivity on this issue, as the person coordinating the 'FairCopyrightOz' campaign, lest anyone think I'm trying to hide that fact. That said, the Business Insider article is an Op-Ed by the Chair of a copyright organisation, rather than by a journalist discussing the matter - as is the case of the Honi Soit article. On the flip-side, even though it has a long tradition, Honi Soit is 'just' university student publication while Business Insider is a professional publication (the neutrality/reliability of either is a question for another day!). Finally...

Kate Haddock's Business Insider article from May 25, authored in her capacity as Chair of the Australian Copyright Council, critiques the factual and legal accuracy of the FairCopyrightOz campaign on Wikipedia, but it itself is a really dodgy piece of writing. Quite aside the Copyright industry's arguments that Fair Use would harm Australian artists financially (despite not giving any actual examples, and ignoring the facts that one of the fairness tests is 'not harming the commercial market for the creator' and that American creative industries thrive with Fair Use) Ms. Haddock's article has many legal and rhetorical fallacies... These include:

• Two legal inaccuracies: That the ABC Logo on Wikipedia's ABC article could be "fair dealing" (which it can't, since Wikipedia doesn't 'report the news' or 'critique' or produce 'satire'); and that Wikipedia could be hosted in Australia / is avoiding Australian law by not doing so (which totally ignores the rules of jurisdiction).
• Four legal-moral inaccuracies: A narrow definition of 'fair' (to only count as 'fair' those things which are already allowed under Australia's existing legislation); that there is 'No evidence to show difficulty' of accessing copyright material in Australia (which directly contradicts the Productivity Commission & Australian Law Reform Commission reports); that Fair Use would harm the local creative/publishing industry (without providing examples and also contradicting those reports); and that Fair Use harms data-privacy (which conflates laws about collecting/selling private information with copyright law - separate things).
• Four straw man arguments (misrepresentations of the campaign): That Wikipedia is representing 'big tech' (especially Google) who bankrolled/suggested this campaign (I proposed it and the Australian-Wikipedians vote to support the idea is on public record. The total cost has been my time as a volunteer, in-kind support from the Australian Digital Alliance, Electronic Frontiers Australia, and Wikimedia Foundation [who control access to the banners]); that we’re arguing that schools pay for use of Wikipedia (schools pay for many publicly/freely-available websites that the public uses for free but WP is not one of them); that we’re arguing Wikipedia’s crowdsourcing model is illegal in Australia (we're arguing that the Fair Use content that WP already has would be illegal if the website were hosted in Australia - not the articles' texts which are written by our own volunteers and shared under a free-licence); and that Fair Use in Australia will increase Wikimedia's budget (which makes no sense since we're donation-funded, all our content is produced by volunteers, and we already use Fair Use).
• Three instances of ad hominem attack: Against a journalist; against the Australian Digital Alliance; and against 'Wikipedia' itself.
• And one appeal to authority: of university lecturers.

[Side note: The article also doesn't disclose the financial conflict of interest that The Copyright Agency stands to lose millions of 'middle man' fees for collecting the money from schools for free-access websites/orphan works (which it has been secretly diverting into an anti-Fair Use lobbying fund).

I can elaborate on any of these points if you wish. So... while I don't agree with the conclusion being made in the Honi Soit article (it still ends up saying that Fair Use would be bad for Australia and does repeat some of these inaccuracies - especially the 'big tech' and the 'Wikipedia is avoiding Australian law' claims) it is an infinitely better source, in the Wikipedian WP:Reliable Source-policy sense of the word, than the Business Insider article.

Therefore if we must make a counterpoint claim as you've requested Soniamaddox, could I suggest that after the sentence "In May 2017 Wikipedia displayed banners to Australian readers in support of the Productivity Commission's recommendation that this simple text be added: "The campaign was criticised by The Copyright Agency."

I realise this is a long answer for a relatively quick question, but I wanted to make my reasoning clear. Sincerely, Wittylama 09:26, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I've read your long answer, thank you. The judgment that the Business Insider article is a "dodgy piece of writing" is subjective. Since it is published by a reputable journal, it is defensible to cite it. If you disagree, simply cite articles that criticize it. I would like to request that my deleted sentence citing this article be restored. Thank you. I note your suggestion of adding a new sentence, above. I have no opinion on that sentence about the campaign being criticized by the Copyright Agency. The original sentence was about the media coverage of the campaign being criticized by the chair of the Copyright Council. Thank you again. Soniamaddox (talk) 12:44, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Of course "dodgy" is subjective - this is a talk page, and that is my assessment, which I then backed-up with a extensive justification. You've not responded to any of the points I've made, other than to reiterate your original request. The suggestion that it should be added, with counter-counter-refutation, I think would be doubling-down on the undue-weight of this issue on the article and I refer to my initial point that it goes without saying that the two 'sides' critique each other's arguments (more or less legitimately, depending on your point of view). I suggest that a third party editor might want to make a decision on this issue rather than us just going backwards and forwards.

Perhaps of greater relevance/usefulness for the article would be to addd to the current sentence which says that WP ran banners, to also say that these banners supported a campaign called "FairCopyrightOz" (and link to https://www.faircopyright.org.au ) AND then also say that the Copyright collecting societies ran, in response, a counter-campaign called "FreeIsNotFair" (and link to https://freeisnotfair.org ). 10:43, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

References