Australian Govt Productivity Commission: Draft Report on Intellectual Property

For those who aren't familiar, the Productivity Commission is a major Australian Government advisory body/think tank that conducts public inquiries into matters of economic policy. The Government requested a broad report into the economic effectiveness of the intellectual property system.

This report is a draft - the Commission is presently taking public submissions that will be considered for the final report later this year.

Highlights from the findings and recommendations:

* 70 years after death is far too long a term for copyright - it would be more appropriate to limit copyright to 15-25 years after creation (noting that this has implications for international copyright treaties)

* Make it explicitly legal to evade geoblocking

* Repeal Australia's "parallel import" restrictions on books

* Replace Australia's present "fair dealing" exemptions with a US-style "fair use" clause which would be much broader in scope

* Ban software patents and business method patents

* Reform pharmaceutical patents in various ways

* Government should adopt an Open Access policy for publicly funded research

All of which seems in line with what I consider sensible policy reform. Of course, whether the Government will consider any of these recommendations at all is a completely different question...

Direct link: http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/intellectual-property...