Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to direct some questions to the minister. In my speech in the second reading debate yesterday I raised the process of lip-syncing a song and then placing it on YouTube or MySpace. I want to ask the minister specifically whether that circumstance, which I think relates to strict liability—distributing material online to an extent that it prejudices a copyright owner—is still a strict liability offence, because my understanding is that that is the provision that catches the scenario of a 14-year-old lip-syncing a song. This provision alone, according to notes by Kim Weatherall from, I think, her blog, would make our criminal law significantly harsher than US law, since in the US you have to at least distribute $1,000 worth of retail value of infringing copies before you get pinged under criminal law. I have another question, but if the minister is able to respond to that now, I will come back to it.