Josh Pyke, Tina Arena, INXS weigh in on Government’s Piracy Discussion Paper
The 630 submissions from individuals responding to Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Online Copyright Infringement Discussion Paper have been made available for download.
Among the submissions uploaded by Australian Greens'Senator Scott Ludlam are responses by artists Josh Pyke, Tina Arena, INXS, Birds of Tokyo andThe Potbelleez, music industry figures includingHead of Licensing and Sync at Ministry of Sound AustraliaJohn Ferris, andactor/producer John Jarratt (Wolf Creek), whose son William fronts Melbourne hardcore band Storm The Sky.
In Ferris’ submission he said: “If you look at Australian content only, music is now “freely” available on Spotify, Pandora, etc, through streaming services. For Australian artists, making music available this way has not stopped file sharing of songs — in fact it seems to have encouraged the belief that music should be free all the time. It continues to put downward pressure on content suppliers’ prices. You might say that this is the “modern” way, but how do you expect artists to get paid for their work, which is seemingly valued by those who want to listen to it.”
"These sites should be blocked the same way any other sites that enable illegal activity and theft are," said Tina Arena in her submission. "ISPs should be forced to act, something that is very simple for them [and] would mean music can continue to be created and thousands upon thousands of jobs remain safe."
"I cannot begin to explain how frustrating it is to find my work has been made available online without my consent," said Josh Pyke."I urge the government to follow the lead of other countries and address this problem impacting creators."
Birds Of Tokyo drummer Adam Weston said:"Everybody knows that downloading pirated material from the slew of sites available is illegal and wrong.It's as simple as that.The government needs to implement measures that make ISPs responsible for educating and letting their customers know that what they are doing is illegal.Get straight to the source and make it impossible to access websites that are proven to be illegally hosting copyright content."
"As a recording artist of note," said INXS'Kirk Pengilly,"I have seen the demise of recording royalties and the devaluation of artist's intellectual property/copyright over the last 10-15 years.The exponential downgrade of revenue from music due to the lack of copyright 'internet' law has seen the downsizing of the whole music industry infrastructure – from recording studios and record labels closing down to the reduced funding within the industry to develop talent.
"Copyright laws need to be re-written to cover the 'free for all' platform that is the worldwide internet," said not just with music but also with film and television (who are just starting to feel the effects of illegal downloading as well)."
Actor John Jarratt has publicly expressed his distain with Australia's current copyright reform before; speaking to the ABC in October Jarratt said: "It's called piracy cancer,and it's fatal at the moment […]There's a cure to this cancer, and it's simply buy your entertainment like you have to buy everything else in this world. You're not supposed to take things for nothing and steal from people and take their livelihood."
One citizen responded to the government’s Discussion Paper question‘How can the impact of any measures to address online copyright infringement best be measured?’ with one word: “ridiculous”. Another called the question 'Do the proposals have unintended implications, or create additional burdens for entities other than rights holders and ISPs?'anti-Australian.
“Downloading content SHOULD NOT BE A FELONY […] Struggling Australian’s (sic) are the ones cutting corners to brighten there (sic) lives,” said another.
A self-described engineer named Andrew Galloway believes ISPs shouldn’t be held accountable: “Cutlery store’s (sic) do not police who they sell knives to despite some of them being used to murder people. JB HiFi do not send someone to stand over your shoulder to ensure that you and only you are listening to and/or watching the single copy of whatever movie or DVD you’ve bought.”
The submissions were initially withheld from the public at George Brandis' request, but thanks to lobbying fromSenator Scott Ludlam, you can download all 630 individual submissions here.