The Australian Government’s Stance On Our Own SOPA-Like Law

The Stop Online Piracy Act is on ice for now in the US, but has all the noise it created given our own government ideas on how it would approach the issue of online piracy? There’s some slight cross-over with the filter, yes, but the far-reaching powers that a SOPA-like piece of legislation would grant go way beyond keeping the kids safe, as it were.

Breathe a sigh of relief — at least for now. The government isn’t cooking up its own version of SOPA, reports ZDNet. In a statement from the Attorney-General’s office, it was made clear that it would prefer the “industry” — “content owners” and “internet service providers” — to hug it out on piracy and come up with a solution together.

The article goes on to say that said industry heavyweights and the government will be sitting down to chat sometime in February. In the past, consumer groups haven’t been invited to such meetings — ZDNet says this is because the government believes it’s “too early” for them to come to the party.

Scott Ludlam, a spokesperson for the Greens, was recently quite vocal regarding the government’s stance and resulting approach to handling online piracy. At this year’s all-things open source conference Linux.conf.au, held last week in Ballarat, he felt confident Australia could eventually be on the receiving end of SOPA-like legislation.

According to ZDNet, he had this to say:

“We should be in that room, in the copyright debate; otherwise, we are going to get some kind of dumbed-down Australian-flavoured SOPA — 12 months after it resolves itself in the United States, it’ll pop up here; you can absolutely guarantee it.”

[ZDNet Australia]

Image: Wikipedia/National Archives of Australia


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