Mar 16, 2009

All right, Telstra and Google

Section 92a is probably dead in the water now, after Telstra clear pulled out of any negotiations with the Telecommunications Carriers Forum.

"You have got to have sympathy for the Government. They have inherited an ambiguous mess and you can understand why they might have hoped a code would make this go away. But we have had unprecedented customer concern and we can't try to make a bad law work."The idea our customers can be disconnected on accusation and not proof does not pass the 'fair test'."

Next, Google has also considered this important enough to make a submission

In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.

As such, Google says "Section 92A puts users’ procedural and fundamental rights at risk, by threatening to terminate users’ internet access based on mere allegations and reverse the burden of proof onto a user to establish there was no infringement."

It goes on to say, "Section 92A undermines the incredible social and economic benefits of the open and universally accessible internet, by providing for a remedy of account termination or disconnection that is disproportionate to the harm of copyright infringement online."





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