Australian Minister for Censorship Stephen Conroy appeared on the ABC’s Q&A Thursday night. Transcript and video here (I’m not sure if the video is available outside of Australia).

I won’t rehash it all, but some interesting takeaways:

Political Content

STEPHEN CONROY: But that is not what is being proposed. I mean we believe that there is a compelling argument to block refused classification. We’ve not suggested, and I repeat, it would go against the fundamental tenet of the Labor party to suggest you would block political content, which is the China line and the Saudi Arabia line. I couldn’t be more clear or simple or straightforward on that. So no one is suggesting – no one – that we would go down that path.

The problem here is that refused classification has already been used to block political content, namingly the now infamous abortion site that included images of allegedly aborted fetuses.

Now we can argue whether those images are offensive or not (most people would say that they are), but like them or not, they demonstrate the effects of a legal procedure and were being used in a political context. You can show dead bodies on the 6pm news, but you can’t show abortion pictures online?

The call can only be political, even when the context isn’t taken into account, which is what ACMA claimed in Senate estimates.

So under the Labor Government, they won’t ban political websites for being political, they’ll just decree that the content on some political sites is refused classification on another ground and block them anyway.

And I nearly forgot, it was Conroy who previously described the filter as blocking “unwanted” content. For Conroy to now argue that the push as always been RC contradicts himself…until he changes his mind again…flip…flop….

Welcome to Nazi Germany.

Recourse/ errors

TONY JONES: Now, can I just interrupt once again, because there’s a story in the Sydney Morning Herald website today saying that a link containing a series of photographs of young boys by Bill Henson is actually on this blacklist. Bill Henson: back in the media for reasons of censorship. Is he on the list?

STEPHEN CONROY: The classification board looked at this website and actually said it’s PG and a technical error inside ACMA, I’m advised – literally a technical error – included it, but it was actually cleared by the classification board, so it shouldn’t have been on the list. Now, I’ve asked ACMA in the last few hours to go through their entire list again to see if there’s any other examples of this and at this stage – and they’re piling their way through it overnight – they found this one site that falls into this category where it’s been misclassified, not by the classification board but by the ACMA technology that they’ve been doing.

So the list, which is secret so there’s no way of telling what’s on it (until it gets leaked that is), contains “technical errors.” The list currently has 1100 sites on it, but under the new scheme could expand to include millions. How many “technical errors” are acceptable?

Guilty for the actions of others

STEPHEN CONROY: Now, I’d like to talk about the dentist, because that’s been a good bit of fun this week. Here’s what happened. The Russian mob targeted Queensland small businesses last year and what they did was they identified websites that had blank pages underneath the main page and what they would do is they would put some material that would be refused classification on that site, on that one page within that site.

So site owners who have done nothing wrong get banned because someone hacked their site and put RC material on it.

If someone broke into my home and committed a crime, would I be charged for the crime they committed?

Zig Heil.

STEPHEN CONROY: So the dentist that people say, well, how could you possibly block a dentist: because the Russian mob hacked his site. Well, not his site directly, but they actually entered into using his web address, so I don’t actually have a problem with wanting to try and combat the Russian mob putting – I’m not exaggerating – putting material that would be refused classification and then trying to publicise it worldwide

Because striking the innocent in a quest to target the guilty is a reasonable tactic? So someone at the back of my house is a terrorist, and the army is out the front wanting to get to the terrorists. Under Conroy’s logic it would be ok for the army to run their tanks over my house with me inside of it, because it’s justified in getting the bad guys.

Lies

STEPHEN CONROY: This is the existing standards by which current newspapers, current TV shows, current radio shows, are judged.

Actually, that’s also not true. News programs get a free pass of things like dead bodies in war zones as long as it’s deemed “news.” The picture of Saddam Hussein hanging was shown on TV. Dead body in a noose.

And now to the truth

STEPHEN CONROY: I believe in a civil society and a civil society does not have a wild west laissez faire culture.

So this is actually a culture war as opposed to cracking down on kiddie porn Senator Conroy?

Note that in context of Government policy, laissez faire is to “minimize or eliminate government intervention in most or all aspects of society.” So if this policy is the opposite of laissez faire, then it must be one of increasing Government intervention in culture. Culture is not child pornography or other illegal material, culture is (from Wikipedia) an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning. Sounds more and more like Nazi Germany, doesn’t it.

SMH: Bikie killed in Sydney Airport brawl

The man was beaten to death INSIDE the Qantas Domestic Terminal.

Where in the world was security? I know, it was too busy looking for forbidden fruit (like Apples from Victoria) in the baggage collection area, or making sure the pram going through X-ray wasn’t carrying a bomb.

It is incomprehensible that a person could be beaten to death inside Australia’s busiest airport. This is an EPIC FAIL of security beyond anything seen in this country. WTF doesn’t even begin to describe it.

SMH again

he 29-year-old was knocked to the ground during the brawl – involving at least 10 men – and bashed repeatedly in the head with a metal bollard.

The attack took place in terminal three, one of the most secure and monitored public spaces in Australia.

Obviously not that secure.

Sir Humphrey Appleby would be proud:

Last night I said that Telstra hadn’t shut down Leslie’s Twitter account. This was based on the advice of my colleagues. It’s factually correct, though it’s also true that Leslie’s senior managers independently told him last night to stop.

So it’s factually correct that Telstra did not ask that the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter account be shut down, but it’s also true that they did ask the account to be shut down.

Now we’re talking gibberish 😉

Here’s the headline
Swan to curb ‘obscene’ salaries

Here’s the first paragraph
The Federal Government will introduce new laws to curb excessive executive payouts, Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

Here’s the first catch
Under the change flagged by the treasurer, shareholder approval will be required for termination payouts of more than one year’s base pay.

So basically the Government isn’t actually cracking down on exec pay, it’s just changing the approval goal posts.

And here’s the second catch: who owns most of these companies in the first place?

Answer: funds managers with predominately super fund money.

Who runs most super funds?

Answer: banks

Who sits on the boards and gets big executive salaries to begin with?

Answer: usually the same people who sit on the boards of banks.

So when executive salary comes up, what’s the real chance that these funds will vote against proposals? Maybe some industry super funds will vote no, but it won’t be enough.

Double bonus round
“The government will curb golden handshakes in the form of excessive termination payments,” he said.

So it’s only when they leave, not what they get paid upfront? 🙂

Overall I don’t believe the Government should be interfering with pay rates in private companies (well, bailouts aside), but if they’re going to do it, do it properly, not just the piss and wind claytons version.

Margaret Simons wrote about the now infamous Freeview spoof in Crikey Tuesday. She left something out. This was my response to Crikey, although it wasn’t published.

Margaret Simons’ otherwise excellent coverage of the Freeview spoof video saga was somewhat sullied by a last line that reads “At the time of publishing, you can view the spoof video here, but we anticipate it will get taken down again, so quick sticks!”

What Simons failed to note, either in the article or in drawing that conclusion, is that the video (as a parody) is protected speech both in Australia and the United States. It isn’t clear from the article whether the take down notice received by YouTube was made under US law (where the video would be hosted) or under Australian law, but the result is still the same in both jurisdictions: a parody of this
nature is clearly legal.

In Australia, The COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 – SECT 41A clearly defines fair dealing (our weaker version of fair use) in this context: “A fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or with an adaptation of a literary, dramatic or musical work, does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the work if it is for the purpose of parody or satire.” The University of Melbourne notes that this includes “Audio-visual works (cinematographic films, sound recordings & broadcasts).”

In the United States, the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. ?Ç¬ß 107 includes the line “the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”

If the law firm backing Freeview made the claim under the US DMCA, they could be found liable for making a false claim. A standard claim must include the words “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate.” If the lawyers had spent 5 seconds on Google they would have discovered that the video was not an infringement of copyright under existing and tested law.