Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018, I want to pick up on a point that the member for Boothby made—that the internet poses challenges in this area. Yes, it does, but the big challenge is the freeing-up of copyright to ensure that innovation can spread more widely and to face up to big rights holders and the types of hysterical arguments we get in this space. As lawmakers, just because we might get a selfie with Richard Roxburgh—I love Rake as much as anyone else—or a political party gets a donation from a rights holder, does not mean that we should stop looking at how to make the types of reforms that balance the needs of creatives and the needs of producers versus the needs of consumers.

No-one supports piracy. No-one should support piracy. Piracy is theft—I totally get that. We support this bill, but the problem is that the bloated, greedy, resistant-to-change rights holders will always refuse to reform in this space. Copyright reform is used as their way to shield themselves from the modern era, to shield themselves from new ways of doing things. The internet is not a challenge to rights holders; the mentality of rights holders to move with the times is the biggest challenge to rights holders in this country. Piracy is their go-to lever—'We're all about fighting pirates.' Apparently there are pirates all over the place who we have to be watching out for, who are ready to rip people off, who are demonising these hardworking rights holders. We get this argument all the time. These rights holders think that, by constantly using legal mechanisms through this place and elsewhere, piracy will disappear. The reality is that piracy is a reflection of a market failure. I do not excuse, condone or support piracy, but I do recognise that it is a reflection of market failure, where producers are making an offering that is not in line with consumer expectations and the access is not in line with consumer expectation.

What we are providing for with these types of bills, which the rights holders all champion, support and claim credit for, is a form of regulatory hallucinogen, where they think that, if they get this type of regulatory reform through, piracy will disappear. No, it won't. When rights holders get serious about the consumer offering and the way in which they're helping consumers access content in a much more affordable way, that will have a bigger impact. This isn't some sort of highfalutin, 'utopic' view about this.

See this speech in context