Australian Government may introduce three strikes piracy law

The Australian Government is considering the implementation of a three strikes piracy law as part of a policy that aims to “develop sustainable online content models.”

In a wide ranging “Digital Economy Future Directions” paper that completely ignores early stage web startups, the Australian Government said of piracy that it “recognizes a public policy interest in the resolution of this issue” and that it is currently “working with representatives of both copyright owners and the Internet industry in an effort to reach an industry-led consensus on an effective solution to this issue.”

The paper specifically details a three strikes piracy proposal, although does note that some submissions “opposed this proposal for reasons including the lack of judicial oversight of administering sanctions based on private allegations, the lack of public transparency about the process and concern over consumer rights.”

What is notable is the wording: the Government is currently “working with representatives;” if there was to be no change to current laws (which don’t include three strikes provisions) then there would be nothing to work on. The implementation of three strikes in Australia would have to be enforced by law as notable large ISP’s are already on record saying that they don’t support it, and Australia’s second largest ISP iiNet is currently being sued by the movie industry for allowing customers to download pirated content.

The paper also mentions the importance the Government places on censoring the internet, or as they like to call it, offering “cyber safety” so that the “community enjoys digital confidence” (no, I’m not making this up.) That they’d introduce a three strikes law along with Chinese style censorship really shouldn’t be all that surprising.