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Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data – report released

[Cross posted from auPSI.org]

On Wedneday 24 June 2009, the Victorian Government released the Report of the Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee on the Inquiry into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data.

The Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee (‘the Committee’) was tasked with inquiring into, considering and reporting to the Victorian Parliament on the potential application of open content and open source licensing models, including Creative Commons, to Victorian Government Information.

The Committee made three key recommendations for access to and reuse of PSI:

1) That the Victorian Government develop an Information Management Framework for the purpose of facilitating access to and reuse of Victorian Government information by government, citizens and businessess. The default position of the Framework should be that all PSI produced by Victorian Government departments from now on be made available at no or marginal cost.

2) That the Victorian Government make use of the Creative Commons licensing model for the release of PSI. The Committee was told that Creative Commons licences can be appropriately used for up to 85% of government information and data.

3) That the Victorian Government establish an online directory where the public can search for and obtain information about PSI held by the Victorian Government. Depending on the access conditions the Government has attached to specific PSI, people will be able to download information and data directly, or make contact with people in the Victorian Government to discuss access conditions.

This is an immensely significant report, which has been noted internationally including on the ePSIplatform. In particular, the recommendation that the Victorian Government use CC licensing is very encouraging.


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In summary:

Key Recommendations of the Report –

Recommendation 1: That the Victorian Government release a public statement indicating that it endorses open access as the default position for the management of its public sector information.

Recommendation 2: That the Victorian Government develop a whole-of-government Information Management Framework (IMF).

Recommendation 8: That the Victorian Government encourage as part of its funding agreements with research agencies and higher education institutions that research results be deposited in open access journals or repositories.

Recommendation 11: That the Victorian Government develop a consistent copyright licensing system for use across all government departments.

Recommendation 13: That exclusive arrangements not be entered into for licensing Victorian Government public sector information, excepting exclusive rights necessary to protect the public interest.

Recommendation 14: That the Victorian Government adopt the Creative Commons licensing model as the default licensing system for the Information Management Framework.

Recommendation 15: That the Victorian Government adopt a hybrid public sector information licensing model comprising Creative Commons and a tailored suite of licences for restricted materials.

Recommendation 16: That the Victorian Government develop specific guidelines for the pricing of public sector information (PSI), emphasising the provision of PSI at no cost or marginal cost.

Recommendation 21: That the Victorian Government require wherever possible that its information and data be stored in open standard formats.

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Key Findings of the Committee –

Finding 1: Quantitative data about economic benefits arising from increased commercial exploitation of public sector information (PSI) does not currently provide clear guidance for policy. There is a growing view, however, that new commercial enterprises will emerge as access to PSI is improved.

Finding 2: Improved access to and utilisation of public sector information may result in economic benefits for the Victorian Government through greater efficiency in the allocation of resources and more informed decision-making and policy development processes.

Finding 5: There is substantial potential for spatial data held by the public sector to contribute to new commercial and public services and research. There are also significant opportunities for access to spatial data held as public sector information to be improved.

Finding 6: The proliferation and interdependence of patents can act as a barrier to innovation and the delivery of new products to the market.

Finding 7: The existence of copyright in government-owned materials does not necessarily limit the extent to which they can be made publicly available. Copyright and in particular Crown copyright may, however, limit opportunities for re-use of those materials.

Finding 8: A lack of standardised licensing practices between and within governments can act as a barrier to public sector information access.

Finding 9: The removal of copyright from Victorian Government public sector information (PSI) is unlikely to simplify access to and re-use of PSI. Access to and re-use of PSI will be best facilitated by issuing licences in accordance with existing copyright provisions.

Finding 10: Open content licences provide governments with a simple and effective mechanism to facilitate enhanced access to and re-use of copyright protected public sector information in a digital, online environment.

Finding 11: Creative Commons is a comprehensive licensing system that can be applied to both online and offline materials.

Finding 13: It is likely that Creative Commons licences can be appropriately applied to around 85 per cent of government public sector information.

Finding 14: The application of geographical restrictions to public sector information (PSI) licences will be difficult to enforce and may compromise the re-use value of government PSI.

Finding 15: Issuing attribution-only Creative Commons licences will assist to maintain the integrity of Victorian Government public sector information while ensuring access and re-use opportunities are maximised.

Finding 19: There is an emerging view that the application of no cost or marginal cost pricing to public sector information will increase access to and re-use of such information, with the potential to stimulate productivity and economic growth.

Finding 20: There is growing recognition that government should have a limited role in adding value to public sector information (PSI) for commercial purposes. The value of PSI should be enhanced through private sector activity for the creation of new products and services.

Finding 21: The provision of public sector information in open standard formats is a key component of open access.

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Government 2.0 Taskforce

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On Monday 22 June 2009, the new Government 2.0 Taskforce was announced. The Terms of Reference for the Taskforce are that the Taskforce will advise and assist the Australian Government to:

  • make government information more accessible and usable — to establish a pro-disclosure culture around non-sensitive public sector information;
  • make government more consultative, participatory and transparent — to maximise the extent to which government utilises the views, knowledge and resources of the general community;
  • build a culture of online innovation within Government — to ensure that government is receptive to the possibilities created by new collaborative technologies and uses them to advance its ambition to continually improve the way it operates;
  • promote collaboration across agencies with respect to online and information initiatives — to ensure that efficiencies, innovations, knowledge and enthusiasm are shared on a platform of open standards; and
  • identify and/or trial initiatives that may achieve or demonstrate how to accomplish the above objectives.

If the Taskforce follows through on its Terms of Reference, I think it will do great things. Read more on the Government 2.0 Taskforce blog. The website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australian licence.

My boss, Professor Brian Fitzgerald, is one of the members appointed to the Taskforce, along with Dr Nicolas Gruen, Mia Garlick and others. Brian’s is an excellent appointment – he is an internationally recognised IP and technology law expert, whom I’m confident will contribute much to the Taskforce.

The Taskforce is also running a competition to design the Taskforce website’s banner. All entries will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 2.5 Australian licence.

conference, copyright

Copyright Future Copyright Freedom Interviews now available

Last month, I blogged about the Copyright Future Copyright Freedom conference run by Professor Brian Fitzgerald of QUT Faculty of Law and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI). I mentioned that during the course of the conference, my colleague Nic Suzor and I had the task of interviewing some of the conference delegates about how they first became involved in copyright law and what their perspectives are on the future of copyright. These interviews are now available online, thanks to Jimmy Ti who has helped us build the website around the conference recordings.

We will continue to add to the interviews on this page. As part of the Copyright Futures project, we are hoping to generate a bulk of interviews (ideally around 50) from copyright experts around the world.

The video and audio of the full presentations at the conference will also be made available online in the coming weeks.

conference, copyright

Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom conference 2009 – central themes

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Some of the central themes and key points to come out of the conference were:

[Note – these are my notes and paraphrasing, not direct quotes]

  • Australia has typically followed UK and US movements in copyright law, often to our detriment. However, in some areas we are able to make independent copyright laws without offending international law (e.g. we could advocate for compulsory licensing of material for developing countries or for a thorough explanation of the Berne 3 step test). But will we do it? – Benedict Atkinson
  • The Berne three step test may have been interpreted wrongly – the steps, “do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work” and “do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the rights holder”, are not necessarily as broad as we think, and normal exploitation and legitimate interests do not always have to mean monetary compensation. Authors have many different interests in their work. Maybe we should think about them – Professor Susy Frankel

  • We need to get our minds around the true justification of copyright law, and the true interests of creators. These are often different to what the closed-access and permission-based model would have us think – Professor Adrian Sterling and many other conference delegates
  • Professor Adrian Sterling suggested a motto for the conference – “Easy Access; Easy Licensing”
  • The Hon. Michael Kirby amended this to “Easy Access; Justifiable Licensing”
  • We are creating a generation of criminals (“copyright pirates”) in our kids, who are used to downloading things from the internet and don’t see why this shouldn’t be allowed – we need to find a solution that prevents our children from being “criminals”. We need to do this in such a way that copyright is still respected, because otherwise we run the risk of revolution – having our children revolt against copyright law and call for its abolition – Professor Lawrence Lessig

  • In the digital environment, we need to give up our obsession with “the copy”. In an online environment, everything is a copy. Therefore, under the current copyright system, nothing can be done without permission and usually the payment of a fee. This is unsatisfactory. We need to focus on meanigful use as the reason for giving rise to the operation of copyright law requiring permission and/or payment – Professor Lawrence Lessig

  • We need to consider the cultural impact of copyright law, particularly for indigenous persons – Maroochy Barambah, Ade Kukoyi and Professor Susy Frankel

  • The key to innovation is information flows, especially within government and the public sector. To enable this, we need to free up copyright in public sector materials – Dr Terry Cutler

  • We need to look for new models of copyright and revenue-generation from copyright. One such model may be a benefit-sharing model, rather than a fee-based model – Professor Brian Fitzgerald

  • We need to rethink nearly everything we know about copyright law. We need to recognise that the idea/expression dichotomy is problematic. We need to recognise that users are situated within cultural and material spaces and limits and they use creative material in many, many different ways. We should acknowledge that copyright plays a relatively small role in the creative process, and that often creativity relies on the interplay between whatever is available and familiar (mass culture) and “play” or “serendipity”. Copyright serves goals that are primarily economic and which promotes predictability. This is important because it enables the production of mass culture. But the focus on economic fixity can frustrate the creative process of situated users. There needs to be logical gaps in the law to permit play, serendipity and freedom – Professor Julie Cohen

[Update: my colleague, Elliott Bledsoe, has done what I could not and blogged pretty much the entire conference. See the “Creative Commons Through the Looking Glass” blog]

conference, copyright

Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom conference 2009 – why I am lame and did not blog

I returned last night from the Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom conference hosted in Canberra on 27-28 May 2009 [program available here]. I was hoping to live blog the conference (seeing as it was so interesting!), but unfortunately due to the historic nature of the venue (Old Parliament House) there were very few wired internet connections and no wireless connectivity. Peter Black (PeterBlackQUT) and Elliott Bledsoe (elliottbledsoe), who had their own internet connections (courtesy of some “dongles”), were tweeting during the day. You can follow their tweets at #copyrightfuture09.

I did take some notes during the day, but I have decided not to blog extensively on the individual presentations. Mainly because I feel that the fairly mediocre notes that I took do not do the presentations justice. There are some brief notes here, but nothing substantial.

QUT (which hosted the conference, convened by Professor Brian Fitzgerald), will be making the audio and video recordings of each presentation, and the relevant slide sets, available online under CC licences in the very near future (subject to presenter permission). I will post here when they are uploaded, so watch this space. The recordings are probably the best way to access the presentations for any who are interested. And I would highly recommend it, because most were brilliant.

Another reason I did not have much time to take detailed notes (excuses, excuses), was that (along with my colleague, Nic Suzor) I spent a great deal of my time running around with a low-quality mp3 recorder taking short (3-5 minute) interviews with some of the conference delegates. The interview questions centred around how each interviewee first became involved with or interested in copyright law; what they see as some of the main challenges and issues in copyright law; and what they see for the future of copyright. The interviews will also be made available online as podcasts, subject to interviewee permission. Interviewees included (among others):

Again, watch this space for notification of when the podcasts are available.

conference, copyright

Conference – Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom

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On 27 and 28 May 2008, Professor Brian Fitzgerald of QUT will host a conference, in Canberra, on the history and future of copyright. I will be attending this conference, and I am very excited about it! Details are below –

This conference – Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom – will be held at Old Parliament House (OPH) in Canberra on Wednesday 27th May and Thursday 28th May 2009. The month of May in 2009 marks 40 years since the commencement of the Australian Copyright Act of 1968.

Program Chairs: Professor Brian Fitzgerald and Benedict Atkinson
QUT Law Faculty and ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation

The conference will consider the history of copyright law with special focus on the excellent work of Benedict Atkinson on the True History of Australian Copyright Law (2007). It will also chart the path of copyright law since that time and give special focus to future possibilities.

The conference will be opened by the Honourable Robert McClelland Attorney-General for the Commonwealth of Australia and our Keynote Speaker will be Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University Law School.

Speakers include:

  • Professor Julie Cohen, Faculty of Law Georgetown University Washington DC
  • Professor Tom Cochrane DVC QUT
  • Maroochy Barambah, Songwoman for Turrbal People
  • Professor Adrian Sterling, Queen Mary College London
  • Dr Terry Cutler, Cutler and Co Melbourne
  • Professor Susy Frankel, Faculty of Law Victoria University of Wellington NZ
  • Professor Anne Fitzgerald, Faculty of Law QUT
  • Dr Prodromous Tsiavos, London School of Economics London
  • Professor Phillip Graham, Director of iCi QUT

For further information on this conference please contact Professor Brian Fitzgerald
at QUT via email: [email protected]

Part of the conference will be held in the House of Representatives Chamber in Old Parliament House. As we are restricted as to the number of people that can be present in the House of Representatives Chamber the conference audience will be limited to 100 people.

copyright

QUT free public lectures in May

Professor Julie Cohen – Copyright and Creativity

In March, I posted notice of a free public lecture by Professor Julie Cohen of Georgetown University and Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School 2009. Professor Cohen will be speaking on Copyright and Creativity. The lecture will be held on Monday 25 May 2009 from 5:00pm-6:30pm in the Gibson Room (Room Z1064), Level 10, Z Block of QUT’s Gardenspoint Campus. See my earlier post for more details. RSVPs were offficially required by 30 April 2009, but late RSVPs will be accepted if you are interested in attending.

Professor Lawrence Lessig – Change Congress and Regulatory Transparency: CHANGE v2: What changes will Obama need?

On Friday 29 May 2009, Professor Lawrence Lessig will give a free public lecture in the Banco Court, Law Courts Complex, 304 George Street, Brisbane. The lecture will be chaired by Justice Douglas of the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the School’s Center for Internet and Society. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, he was the Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a Professor at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Professor Lessig’s career has focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright. He was one of the founding members of Creative Commons. Professor Lessig teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, contracts, and the law of cyberspace.

In this public lecture, Professor Lessig will talk about the project he (and others) launched in 2008 called Change Congress. Its purpose is to persuade members of congress to rely for funding on citizens’ contributions rather than big donations from special interests. The organisation considers that funding by corporate special interests has caused members of congress to favour these interests, undermining the integrity of the legislative process and resulting in legislation that may harm the public interest. Change Congress V1 proposed a multi-tiered program to achieve reform. It planned to enlist the support of house representatives, encourage citizen contribution pledges, garner suppoer for sympathetic politicians, and track the relationship between representatives and lobbyists. V2, announced on 9 January 2009, has simplified this program by encouraging private donors to pledge to withhold donations from congress members who won’t opt-in to the Change Congress system. V2 aims to abolish the culture of big private donations and free legislators from the grip of special interests. The aims of Change Congress are consistent with Barack Obama’s goal to achieve a transparent political culture that restores public trust. Its success may be critical to Obama’s hopes for enlisting congressional support for ambitious reforms to solve domestic and political crisis.

The free public lecture will be held on Friday 29 May 2009, in the Banco Court, Brisbane. There will be refreshments from 5:30pm, with the lecture commencing at 6pm and concluding at 7pm. Please register by 22 May 2009 to [email protected]. Registered attendees may claim 1 CPD point for the Qld Bar Association and Qld Law Society. The program is available here [PDF].

copyright

High Court delivers judgement in the IceTV case

Today, Wednesday 22 April 2009, the High Court of Australia handed down their judgment in the IceTV Pty Limited v Nine Network Australia Pty Limited case [available here]. The Court allowed the appeal with costs.

The appeal to the High Court arose from proceedings brought by the Nine Network in the Federal Court of Australia for infringement of copyright in their Weekly Schedule of television programmes to be broadcast each week. They alleged that each Weekly Schedule was a compilation, and therefore a literary work under the Copyright Act 1968, and that IceTV had infringed copyright by taking part of the time and title information from the Aggregated Guides (guides produced by third party Aggregators, authorised by Nine and to whom Nine provides the Weekly Schedule) and including it in their own (electronic) guide, the “IceGuide”. Nine alleged that this constituted a reproduction of a substantial part of the copyright work. IceTV denied that they had reproduced in a material form a substantial part of any Weekly Schedule and denied that reproduction from any Aggregated Guide was a reproduction of any Weekly Schedule.

French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ summarised the approach of the lower courts as follows (at pp 2-3):

Accordingly, both the primary judge (Bennett J) and the Full Court (Black CJ, Lindgren and Sackville JJ) dealt with this matter on the basis that the subsistence of copyright in the Weekly Schedules was admitted. The dispute was treated below as one to be resolved, first, by a determination of whether the time and title information which was reproduced constitutes a “substantial part” of the Weekly Schedules, and secondly, by consideration of the “indirect reproduction” issue. Both the primary judge and the Full Court essentially approached the question of whether IceTV had reproduced a substantial part of any Weekly Schedule by identifying the “skill and labour” which was expended on creating the Weekly Schedules, then asking whether IceTV has “appropriated” Nine’s skill and labour. The primary judge and the Full Court reached opposite conclusions on the point essentially because of different approaches to identifying the relevant skill and labour in question: the primary judge considered that skill and labour in making programming decisions was not relevant and that there was not a reproduction of a substantial part; the Full Court considered that this skill and labour was relevant and that there was a reproduction of a substantial part.

If the High Court had dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Full Court’s decision, the practical result, in my view, would have been stifling for new players entering this market. It would have essentially given the Nine Network complete control over any schedules or guides setting out what programmes would be screening on Channel Nine and when, and would have preventing anyone from producing such schedules or guides without first obtaining permission from the Nine Network and most likely paying a licensing fee. This is notwithstanding that the Nine Network’s primary function is broadcasting, not scheduling.

French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel JJ gave a joint judgment. They considered that the Weekly Schedules contain both “information” (the time and title information) and “creative” material (such as the synopses of programmes). In relation to the expression of time and title information, they considered that this is not a form of expression that requires particular mental effort or exertion and that the way in which the information can be conveyed is very limited (at p16). They stated at pp 16-17:

The authors of the Weekly Schedule (or the Nine Database) had little, if any, choice in the particular form of expression adopted, as that expression was essentially dictated by the nature of the information. The expression lacks the requisite originality (in the sense explained) for the part to constitute a substantial part.

Counsel for Nine sought to place importance upon the production not only of time and title information in respect of each programme, but also of the chronological arrangement of the time and title information for various programmes. Whether a selection or arrangement of elements constitutes a substantial part of a work depends on the degree of originality of that selection or arrangement. In this case, a chronological arrangement of times at which programmes will be broadcast is obvious and prosaic, and plainly lacks the requisite originality.

These considerations lead to the conclusion that the part of the Weekly Schedule (or the Nine Database) alleged to have been reproduced was not a substantial part.

This determination is, in my view, significant. Although the judges did not address the issue of whether Nine’s Weekly Schedule compilation ought to attract copyright protection in the first place (though see pp 17-18 for a brief reference), at least in so far as it only compiled facts or information in a logical way, they did hold that that protection would not extend to the use of mere facts from the compilation.

Since Desktop Marketing v Telstra, there has been significant uncertainty around a user’s ability to reproduce material contained in a copyrighted data compilation because the test for originality was so wide. This meant that a copyright holder could assert such control over a database that at times they appeared (and often purported) to be able to control use of what essentially amounted to mere facts and information in circumstances where copyright law should not extend. The above judicial statement, while not bringing us in line with the US decision of Feist v Rural Telephone Services in regards to whether copyright should subsist in a compilation that lacks creative input, at least takes a step in the right direction of tightening the originality threshold to provide that reproduction of the purely informational material within a compilation will not constitute a substantial part sufficient to give rise to an infringement claim.

French CJ, Crennan and Kiefel J also state at p20 (in obiter):

Rewarding skill and labour in respect of compilations without any real consideration of the productive effort directed to coming up with a particular form of expression of information can lead to error. The error is of a kind which might enable copyright law to be employed to achieve anti-competitive behaviour of a sort not contemplated by the balance struck in the Act between the rights of authors and then entitlements of the reading public.

Justices Gummow, Hayne and Heydon also delivered a joint judgment. In their judgment, they accepted the submission by IceTV that the originality of the Weekly Schedule “lay not in the provision of time and title information, but in the selection and presentation of that information together with additional programme information and synopses, to produce a composite whole” (p56). Accordingly, like French CJ and Crennan and Kiefel JJ, they found that IceTV had not reproduced a substantial part of Nine’s original copyright work.

Gummow Hayne and Heydon JJ stated (at pp 57-58):

The issue requiring the comparison between what was taken and the whole of the work in suit may be distorted by a mediation, inspired by Desktop Marketing, upon the protection given by the Act against misappropriation of any investment of skill and labour by the author. In the present case, the temptation then is to classify the slivers [of information] each as original literary works…

…The proposition that the Court should look to “the interest” which the copyright protects invites processes of reasoning to which there applies the warning by Judge Learned Hand in Nichols v Universal Pictures Corporation. This is to the effect that the more remote the level of abstraction of the “interest”, the greater the risk of protecting the “ideas” of the author rather than their fixed expression. That risk appears to have been realised in the reasoning of the Full Court.

The Full Court approached the issue of substantiality at too high a level of abstraction, and in doing so tipped the balance too far against the interest of viewers of digital free to air television in the dissemination by means of new technology of programme listings.

It is also interesting to read the Justices’ assessment (at pp 61-65) of just how IceTV compiled their IceGuide, using primarily “prediction” of time and title information and only relying on Nine’s schedules to confirm their predictions, but I won’t cover that in detail here.

Significantly in this case, all judges referred disfavourably to the statement made by Lord Reid in Ladbroke (Football) Ltd b William Hill (Football) Ltd that “what is worth copying is prima facie worth protecting”. Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ called this formula “deceptively simplistic” (p27). All judges referred to the need to balance the protectionist aspects of copyright law with the need to maintain a robust public domain. Furthermore, at p50, Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ discuss in obiter “a reason to treat the decision in Desktop Marketing with particular care…”

Yet the most important obiter remarks were made by Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ immediately following their conclusion (pp 65-66):

One final point should be made. This concerns the submission by the Digital Alliance that this Court consider the Full Court’s decision in Desktop Marketing and, to the contrary of Desktop Marketing, affirm that there must be some “creative spark” or exercise of “skill and judgment” before a work is sufficiently “original” for the subsistence of copyright.

It is by no means apparent that the law even before the 1911 act was to any different effect to that for which the Digital Alliance contents. It may be that the reasoning in Desktop Marketing with respect to compilations is out of line with the understanding of copyright law over many years. These reasons explain the need to treat with some caution the emphasis in Desktop Marketing upon “labour and expense” per se and upon misappropriation. However, in the light of the admission of Ice that the Weekly Schedule was an original literary work, this is not an appropriate occasion to take any further the subject of originality in copyright works.

While it is disappointing that the Court declined to consider in detail the issue put forward by the Digital Alliance, it is encouraging to see an indication that the Court no longer appears to view Desktop Marketing as the ultimate Australian authority on this matter and considers that it should be treated with caution.

copyright

Unlocking IP 2009 presentation – Professor Anne Fitzgerald and Kylie Pappalardo (QUT) – Moving Towards Open Standards

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In the afternoon, Professor Anne Fitzgerald and I presented on the legal (copyright and patent) issues involved in standards development and use, and how we might move towards a more open system of standards from a legal perspective.

Our slide set is available in powerpoint or in PDF.

I believe that UNSW will be publishing conference papers, including ours, in the near future. I will keep you updated on the publication status of our paper.

copyright

Unlocking IP 2009 Presentation – Matthew Landauer, OpenAustralia.org

Probably one of the most interesting presentations from the day came from Matthew Lanauer from OpenAustralia.org. OpenAustralia.org is based on the UK site by mySociety: theyworkforyou.com. OpenAustralia.org is a non-partisan website run by a group of volunteers which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their representatives in Parliament.

In his presentation, Matthew described the problems he has faced gaining copyright permission from the Australian Government to host material such as Senate debates on the website. The Australian Hansard information is Copyright Commonwealth of Australia. For this material and other information, Matthew had lodged repeated requests with the government for permission to use the material, and had not received any response. Ultimately, in relation to one set of material he received an email from someone in government claiming that the material in question was free to be used as it was considered to be in the public domain (a position contrary to the copyright statement on the material). In relation to another set of material, Matthew considered he might have an implied licence, because although the government never officially responded to his request for permission with a yay or a nay, they sent him the material he asked for after he had informed them what he intended to do with it. However, it relation to a great deal of the material on Open Australia.org, Matthew is still not entirely clear of Open Australia’s legal position.

It is a great disappointment that someone like Matthew should have to be in this situation of legal uncertainty. We have a government that claims to be committed to openness and which has commissioned such pivotal reviews as the Review of the National Innovation System (which recommended more openness in government, particularly from a copyright perspective) and yet he still have repeated copyright requests going unanswered. OpenAustralia.org is a really important project from a democratic point of view, and I really hope that the government steps up and proves much more helpful in the future.