History of fair use proposals in Australia

Intellectual property
Authors' rights Copyleft Copyright Database right Farmers' rights Geographical indication Indigenous intellectual property Industrial design right Integrated circuit layout design protection Intellectual property infringement Literary property Moral rights Patent Peasants' rights Plant breeders' rights Plant genetic resources Proprietary software Related rights Supplementary protection certificate Trade dress Trade secret Trademark Utility model Patent infringement
Related topics
Abandonware Artificial intelligence and copyright Brand protection Copyright abolition Copyright troll Criticism of copyright Bioprospecting Biopiracy Idea–expression distinction Limitations and exceptions to copyright Fair dealing Fair use Paraphrasing Right to quote Orphan work Patent troll Pirate Party Public domain Outline of intellectual property Outline of patents Higher categories: Property and Property law
v t e

The history of fair-use proposals in Australia is a series of Australian government enquiries into the introduction of a "flexible and open" fair use system into Australian copyright law. Between 1998 and 2016, eight enquiries examined, and in most cases recommended, the introduction of fair use in place of the current "fair dealing" system which allows copyrighted material to be used only if it meets one of four specific purposes as set out in the Act.

A change to a fair-use system would allow copyright material to be used without the copyright owner's consent in any circumstances where the use is fair, as judged against four "fairness factors".^[1] A re-user need only address the four fairness factors proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission and Productivity Commission, which are:

• The purpose and character of the use;
• The nature of the copyright material;
• The amount and substantiality of the part used; and
• The effect of the use on the potential market for, or value of, the copyright material.^[2]

Proponents of the proposed fair-use system describe it as a system which would "...maximise the net benefit to the community", reinforce that "user interests should also be recognised by Australia’s copyright system",^[3] and that without it, "...the Australian copyright system will always have gaps, always be trying to catch up with new technologies and behaviours."^[4] They further argue that fair dealing is "too limited and prescriptive in nature".^[5] Similar fair use systems are also used in countries including Israel, Singapore, South Korea, and Poland.

Opponents of the proposed fair-use system say that it would introduce "significant and unnecessary uncertainty into Australian law”^[6] and that it is "an American legal principle that has enabled large enterprises in the US to use copyright material for free".^[7] The Motion Picture Association of America considers its potential introduction of in Australia to be a notable "foreign trade barrier"^[8][9] despite proactively supporting the existence of the fair use doctrine in the USA through legal action as "...our members rely on the fair use doctrine every day when producing their movies and television shows".^[10]

The copyright exception system – either fair use or fair dealing – is unrelated to parallel import restrictions, or the duration of the copyright term, although the three are often conflated in public debates.