The Attorney-General’s Department has initiated an examination of the concept of “Fair Use” in copyright with a view to extending or altering the “fair use” provisions in the Copyright Act. This is a good thing.

They have released an issues paper about fair use in Australia and are seeking public submissions closing on 1 July 2005.

Important: This is a chance to help influence the formation of the fair use execptions to maybe even allow us to make backup copies of our CDs or legally put songs from our own CDs onto an iPod, right we currently don’t have. All submissions help.

I can’t find a place on the Attorney General’s website to make submissions. However, there is contact information on the press release.

I’m going to try and crank out a submission in the next couple of weeks. I don’t know how (I’ve got that much else going on), but I will try anyway :-)