In 2015, Australia created the most aggressive copyright censorship system in the world, which allowed the country's two major movie studios (Village Roadshow and Fox) along with an assortment of smaller companies and trolls to get court orders forcing the country's ISPs to censor sites that had the "primary purpose" of infringing copyright.
When the legislation was passed, opponents said that it would not curb copyright infringement. After all, the only thing that had ever significantly reduced copyright infringement in Australia had been to bring Australian prices into line with those paid in the rest of the English-speaking world (instead of gouging, as had been customary), and bringing Australian release-dates into sync with other English-speaking countries (instead of imposing long delays, as had been customary). The data had showed that the vast majority of Australians were willing to pay for their media -- they just objected to getting ripped off by paying high prices for media that arrived months after all their internet friends had seen it.
But the entertainment companies insisted that the censorship system in the 2015 law would drive people away from infringement and into legit markets. Three years later, they've admitted failure -- and rather than focusing on pricing and availability, the companies are now calling for much more censorship in a new copyright bill that is racing towards passage so quickly it might actually make it into law before the Australian government collapses (again).
The new censorship rules would allow blocking orders against sites whose "primary effect" is infringement -- and we know from other lawsuits and proposed laws that this is content-speak for "a site with a lot of infringement," even if the infringement is a tiny fraction of the overall material available. Read the rest
