Mr WILLIAMS (Attorney-General) (1:11 PM) —I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

I foreshadow that there are amendments in relation to the Copyright Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1997 and, in accordance with your direction, I would suggest that reference also be made to those amendments.

The Copyright Amendment Bill 1997 is an important step in bringing about an up-to-date and workable copyright law. I am pleased that the government has met its election commitment to implement these effective and wide ranging reforms for copyright for creators, owners and users of copyright material. Most of these reforms to the law were, of course, promised by the last Labor government but were not delivered. During the debate on the bill in the Senate on 11 July, the government moved a number of amendments to the bill which the Senate has accepted. The government amendments to the bill improve the effectiveness of the amendments made by the bill as passed by the House last June and provide for greater rights for visual artists.

The bill reforms the law of ownership of copyright in works of employed journalists. With the impact of new technology, the way that the act provides copyright between the publishers and employed journalists has become out of date. In regard to electronic uses of the employees' works—for example, the selling of on-line access to the public—the government accepts that the publishers' copyright in their employees' creations should now extend to electronic rights, and the bill provides for this.

The bill confirms that the book rights now held by employed journalists in their articles and pictures will stay with them. The existing right of the employed journalists who authorise photocopying of their articles, most notably in press-cutting services, will also remain with them. However, the government no longer sees justification in giving publishers a right to restrain the making of photocopies of more than 15 per cent of a newspaper or magazine and, therefore, has amended the bill in the Senate to repeal the right of restraint. This amendment makes the reform to employed journalists' copyright more workable.

The removal of copyright control over parallel importation of copyright in packaging and labelling of non-copyright goods will lead to cheaper prices for branded goods and greater availability of such goods. It will benefit consumers and many small businesses as well as correct an anomalous and unjustifiable use of copyright law. The amendments in schedule 3 of the bill implement this desirable and long overdue reform. However, the government recognises that the removal of importation restrictions on goods with copyright packaging and labelling might impose some hardship on firms which in good faith have entered into commitments based on the law as it now stands. For this reason, the government has decided to delay the provisions permitting the parallel importation of copyright goods until 18 months after the bill receives royal assent. This will give adequate time for these businesses to adjust their operations.

The government amendments to schedule 2 of the bill transfer ownership of copyright in commissioned photographs from the commissioning party to the photographer, except for photographs of a private or domestic nature where the copyright control rightly remains with the person commissioning the photograph. The amendments transferring ownership of copyright only apply to photographs taken after the bill comes into effect, so that present contractual arrangements are not affected. This change to the law has been sought by commercial photographers for a number of years and will assist them in licensing future uses of their works, especially in the on-line environment.

The government has also amended section 135ZM of the Copyright Act, which allows for incidental copying by educational institutions that accompany text copied under the licence for educational copying. The government decided to amend the provision to clarify that, where an artistic work is copied along with text that accompanies the artistic work, the remuneration now payable to the author of the text should be shared with the visual artist. This is a positive reform for visual artists, who will now receive their fair share of remuneration collected under the copying licence. The amendment also ensures that educational institutions will not have to make additional payment for the copying of artistic works that accompany the copied texts.

The bill also introduces much needed streamlining or modernising of the operation of some areas of the act which benefit both creators and users of copyright. Provisions amended include those allowing governments to copy copyright material subject to providing equitable remuneration to copyright owners, those allowing institutions serving persons with print or intellectual disabilities to make special additions, those allowing educational institutions to copy materials for teaching, those establishing the Copyright Tribunal, those governing the remedies that may be awarded by courts for copyright infringement and those concerning the border interception of infringing imported copyright material. (Extension of time granted)

The bill as introduced included amendments providing for comprehensive protection of the moral rights of integrity and attribution of authors of works and the makers of films. The government remains committed to introducing a workable moral rights regime. It will be a regime that ensures Australia meets its international obligations and, importantly, it will be one that is fair to creators, producers and users of copyright material. However, once this bill was introduced, the justification for comprehensive moral rights protection became obscured by debate over a provision to allow an up-front waiver for contracted works and films, principally led by the film and television industry.

Since the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee released its report in October 1997, where the majority recommended the extension of waiver at the time of commissioning a work or film, the government has held lengthy discussions over several months with the participants to try to broker an acceptable compromise on this issue that would satisfy all interests and maintain certainty and confidence in the industry. This has not proved possible to date. The government has therefore withdrawn the moral rights provisions in schedule 1 from the bill. We will continue to consult to develop a consensus on a workable provision on waiver and then resubmit the moral rights regime as a stand-alone bill later this year. All in all, this bill as amended is a very substantial first instalment of the government's commitment to introduce an up-to-date and workable copyright regime for Australia.

In relation to the No. 2 bill, in the coalition's arts election policy, For Art's Sake—A Fair Go!, we promised to consider how to ensure that cheaper CDs were available for consumers. In our arts policy, we said:

The coalition is concerned about the high price of CDs by world standards and Labor's failure to introduce greater competitive pressures in the wake of recent reports of the Prices Surveillance Authority.

We are also aware there is significant industry concern regarding the implication of proposals for the abolition of parallel import restrictions. In government, we will invite formal submissions through industry and the wider community to determine the most effective means of achieving lower prices for consumers.

True to this election promise, the government consulted widely with affected interests. We considered the submissions made on the issue of lowering CD prices. After this consultation in October 1997, we decided to remove the existing controls of copyright owners over the parallel importation of sound recordings as a way to reduce the prices of CDs for Australian consumers. The bill as amended in the Senate implements this decision and provides that non-pirate CDs—that is, CDs made legitimately in other countries—can be imported into Australia without the consent of the Australian copyright owner. The bill, of course, maintains the existing rights of copyright owners to stop commercial importation of pirate CDs. The bill also provides for a range of measures to improve the protection for owners of copyright in sound recordings. In civil proceedings against importation of or dealing in pirate copies of CDs, the onus of establishing the defence that the imported CD was not a pirate CD is placed on the importer or distributor in Australia. The bill increases the maximum penalties for all copyright offences. These reforms are long overdue. In 1990, the then Prices Surveillance Authority found that prices of sound recordings were high in Australia by comparison with those in comparable countries. The PSA concluded that the control by copyright owners over the importation of CDs was a major factor in maintaining the higher prices and predicted that prices would fall if parallel importation were permitted.

The Labor government vacillated on this matter for years. It introduced a bill in 1992 which would have partly implemented the PSA's recommendations, but the bill lapsed on the calling of the 1993 federal election. Then, in 1995, the Labor government backtracked and reversed its earlier decision, deciding not to remove the parallel importation controls on CDs. In stark contrast to that lacklustre effort, the Copyright Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1997 , which implements this government's decision to remove parallel import controls on CDs, was passed by this House on 26 November last year. In April this year, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee reported on the bill. After extensive consultation, the majority report recommended that the bill be passed and made some suggestions for the government's consideration.

The government amendments to the bill, passed by the Senate on the weekend, are now before this House. They reflect the government's response to the report of the Senate committee. The government amendments are technical amendments to clarify and refine the operation of provisions in the bill. The government amendments will tighten the definition of non-infringing copy of a sound recording. (Extension of time granted) The amended definition expressly requires that parallel imported CDs must be made in a country with a copyright law and, by reference to the Berne Convention and the World Trade Organisation agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS, in a country with a suitable level of copyright protection.

The amendments also increase the monetary penalties for copyright offences by 10 per cent. Maximum fines will be over $60,000 for individuals, who may also face up to five years imprisonment. Corporations face penalties of over $300,000. These amendments to the copyright penalties provisions will ensure that the government delivers on its commitment to strong protection against piracy and to deterring importation of pirate copies of sound recordings. Consistent with our election commitments, the government is confident these reforms will lead to cheaper CD prices, which will benefit all Australian consumers. I draw attention to the fact that this view is shared by the editors of some leading newspapers, including the Australian today and the Sydney Morning Herald within the last couple of days.

A media release by Bankers Trust Research, dated yesterday, indicates that once the No. 2 bill is made into law, the government expects compact disc prices to fall by between $3 and $7 for brand name goods. However, the government has decided to delay the implementation of the legislation for 18 months. Compact discs are included in the records, cassettes and tapes subgroup of the CPI, and the expectation of Bankers Trust Research is that the cheaper compact discs would shave around one-tenth of a percentage point off the underlying CPI. They make similar comments about exclusive brand name goods, although it does not fall within their projection period. The message for the community is that there will be cheaper compact discs, it will reduce the CPI and everybody will benefit.

The scaremongering that has gone on at the instigation of the multinational distribution companies is deplorable and it is unacceptable that consumers should be subjected to the whims of a multinational exclusive distributor.