Matt Gregg (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about what I agree to be an incredibly important topic. We are, at the end of the day, talking about individual rights—the right of an individual to benefit from the product of their own labour, their original expression of an idea. Copyright has an important role, but there is just so much material that copyright technically covers now. We're producing images, expressing our thoughts and sharing our ideas at a pace unbelievable to those who were alive even only 30 years ago. The world we live in, in this space, has completely changed, and the laws have to adapt with them. We have images that are shared, cropped, shared again and moved between accounts. There is no way we can possibly source the original author. Sometimes, as we now see overseas, the original author wishes to express an idea—share an image that captures a moment in time—but it's not safe for them to share who they are because of the situation in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, they do so not to create a piece of intellectual property or to assert any kind of legal right but as part of communication and to share that idea—to share what's happening to their fellow human being. But copyright does cover all of those original expressions. Therefore, the scope of these laws is very, very real.

We've got to make sure that the individual property rights of those who come up with ideas are appropriately protected at the same time as we as a community are able to benefit from what are sometimes really important expressions of ideas. Those of us who learned history, whether at school or at university, will think back to specific moments in time like the Great Depression and the Vietnam War, and many of us will have the same images in our head that encapsulate those times. Important pieces of copyright material really aid and assist a full understanding of what's gone on in that period of time. But it's not always possible to find out who wrote it. This requires and clearly defines what constitutes reasonable efforts to find out who the owners are and seek their permission to use their original property, whether it's in a textbook or other endeavours. It's important that we balance those two rights together.

This bill really does get it right. There have been consultations going on since 2023. The idea of an orphan-work scheme has been floated since the 1990s, so this is nothing new. It really does not cross party lines in our country's politics or any other like country. This is simply updating what is a very complicated legal regime made only more complicated by the changes in technology that we've seen and the way we use that technology. There's also the free trade agreement with the United States, for example, which also means that copyright subsists for a very, very long time—70 years after the person has died. We are now living a very, very long time. Members of my family might have written something when they were 30, and they're still going 70 years later. These intellectual property rights can exist for a very long period. We've got to make sure that the regime that sits around it is very, very clear.

But we know that, even if we were to confine this to copyright material from the last two years, we're talking about millions and millions of images and ideas. It's not always possible to trace their origin. We're also in a world where, if it's not simple enough to use a genuine image, it's all too easy just to use AI to make a replica. And we don't really want to be doing that. We don't want textbooks full of AI images or impressions of what our source material should be. The trustworthiness and integrity of those materials, whether it's a school textbook or newspaper, sometimes does require the use of primary source material or reliable secondary source material. Sometimes only an image or an expression of an idea will do. It's all too easy to say, 'Well, if you don't know who the author is, just don't use the copyright material.' In some cases that's appropriate, but sometimes there is something so unique—a bit of vision that captures corrupt behaviour, or something that captures a very specific moment in time, which it is uniquely capable of encapsulating—that it is legitimate and reasonable to use it. We need to make sure that that opportunity is available in circumstances generally when there is not an assertive intention to exercise those copyright protections. But we also want to make sure the owners have those legal rights—and it is a suite of rights that come with owning copyright. In most cases the person who's come up with the idea owns the copyright, and it's up to them whether they give others permission to use it, to spread it around and to incorporate it in their own work. Some will say, 'Go ahead,' do it for free and feel quite privileged that that's happened; others will request a fee. It often depends on the kind of work involved. Is it a really cool hit song, or is it just a photo taken at an event, or is it just a tweet shared at a particular moment? All of these can be covered by copyright and are covered similarly by the legislative provisions, but, obviously, all have their very different contexts.

So this clearly defines what we ought to do—what we have to do—in order to enjoy the additional protections of this scheme, and that is to conduct reasonably diligent searches for the owner and then to seek to contact them to get their permission to use the rights. But sometimes that is impossible, either because time has passed or because it's just passed through so many hands, and even the best of searches can't yield a result. And sometimes the original author may have passed away or simply doesn't want to be found. These all happen. These are all real-life examples. We need to have a system that enables these important works to be utilised at the same time as having protections in place for the proper owners.

And sometimes, even if you do cover the author, it's not always possible to track the chain of ownership of an idea. Sometimes, if you come up with an idea, it might actually end up being the property of your employer, for example, because you might have done it in an employment context, and that company might have ceased existing—it might have gone into liquidation; it might have been sold. Sometimes it can be a nightmare to find the true owner of a copyrighted work. So this is a wonderful import of common sense into intellectual property law. It's a wonderful thing to be able to come into the House and say, 'This is uncontroversial. It makes sense. We're all just going to do it because it is the right thing to do and it just makes sense here and now.'

There are challenges, obviously, in terms of copyright. AI presents a new challenge that we haven't seen before, where small adaptations of existing works or recreations of existing works can sometimes be mistaken for the real thing. But I think that, if we want to maintain truth in the way we do media, we have to make sure that proper, original material is there and that we are diligently looking for the sources of those materials. So this will be good discipline, no matter what kind of work you do, because you'll be maintaining that discipline of finding out what the origin is, getting the story behind the work and making sure that you're putting things on air that do have integrity.

We've seen plenty of examples of news coverage that is pulled—AI videos and other things where things have been mistaken. There is no substitute for putting the work into finding out exactly where an image, a video or a clip has come from, because misinformation and disinformation are a very real problem in our society right now. To maintain trust, we need to make sure that we know what images we are using and that there are incentives in place to do the diligent thing and to properly source the material that we have. The orphan works scheme is an incredibly important addition to intellectual property law.

Another key aspect of this bill is the additional protections for educators. Even in the time I was teaching, the nature of classroom work changed significantly. I taught history for a long time. We were using images a lot. But as students became ill, it became normal practice to record our lessons and to share them. There were times when I had to edit what I'd delivered in the classroom to make sure that what I was transmitting by video and through our online learning spaces wasn't inadvertently breaching copyright, so I'd have to edit out bits of the presentations and the like. It meant that it diminished the experience that those other students were having, because they weren't able to see the full presentation.

This also made the job harder for teachers. I think anyone who's worked in our profession knows that we should be doing everything possible to make that job easier, not harder. So this is a reasonable and decent thing to do. It reflects the realities of modern education. Students who aren't in the classroom will often be learning from home and, more often than not, will need the support of a parent or carer in that environment. No-one's harmed by the fact that a parent sees an image that their kid sees while learning history or something. There is no mischief created by that scenario. This, again, is applying common sense that reflects the realities of modern life in a society where we are often not only teachers, there to entertain and to parent; we're also TV presenters a lot of the time. Not only are we teaching a classroom full of young people; we're also creating engaging audiovisual learning materials for those who aren't in the classroom at the time to learn from—and to do so in an enriching way. It is important that we give them every support, including this regime, so they are able to do that in an effective way.

There are technical amendments in this bill as well that go to public ownership of certain works—things created by the ABC and the like. Those do have different dates. We're making it clear that, if it is a piece of copyrighted material just purchased in the ordinary open marketplace, that doesn't change. If the origin is a work done for public purposes, then it is subject to that shorter time limit. That also reflects the public interest by making sure that, in the long term, we, the taxpayers, get to enjoy the benefits of those things that we have paid for and that, after a period of time, we then just collectively own that material and can use it as we see fit. Once copyright ceases to exist, it then becomes public domain and can be used however you wish. Fifty years is not a very long time. Some of my favourite shows are over 50 years old. Copyright is very important, but when it's gone, it's gone.

An honourable member: Get Smart!

Yes, exactly—Get Smart, and other things as well. The passage of time does cause difficulties in sourcing things. While many archivists have, in decades gone by, done a very, very thorough job in cataloguing their works, it is more and more difficult to be able to precisely source some historical images that have just been uploaded with mass uploads of old materials. Sometimes even the best endeavours just cannot find the origins of these things, and sometimes copyright works can be incorporated in other copyright works. There are various complications that can exist in that environment.

This is a very, very welcome piece of reform, and there are some amendments around this that clarify its role in the education space for when there is overlap between the statutory licence and this orphan works regime. It certainly removes any scope for doubt as to the intended application of this regime in the educational environment, which is an incredibly good thing. The reality is many of us are using copyright materials every day. I've seen many colleagues retweeting or reposting images. It's in good faith. It's not to make money, and no-one's losing anything. But that's the world we're in. It is all copyright. It is someone's original expression of an original idea. It is their property. Part of respecting that is a discipline that we all do need to get better at in an environment where things are just moving about so quickly.

We write all the time. We take photos all the time. It's not just the photographer at the local newspaper anymore; it's every single citizen in the community who's carrying a wonderful camera device which can take 4K images, in some cases. They're producing stuff that we all rely on. Those individuals also deserve those rights, just like the hardworking professionals that produce copyright work for a living. This is for everyone who wishes to express their idea in their own way. But, as I said, copyright, in most cases, is just an incidental legal outcome of communication now. We know there's a little less talking in person and going over to people's houses. There's more writing things and posting them online.

Copyright is here, there and everywhere in this era, for better or worse. We can all lament it. But, instead of being a grouchy old man who says that it was better in the old days, we just have to deal with the reality we've got. That is that copyright is everywhere, and, therefore, the legal protections need to reflect that we are talking about individual property rights, which are important in any free society, and we do need to respect those. This balances those. You can—even if you are unable to be found at that moment—within the limitation period go and assert those rights. You are able to recover reasonable compensation, which is absolutely appropriate.

We don't want disproportionate things. We don't want ambit claims for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for simply reposting someone's tweet. There is, again, room for common sense. I can trust our authorities to do that appropriately. But we are in an environment now where it is about time that we update these laws. The world is very different to what it was in 1968. The world has changed fundamentally. I commend this bill to the House. I'm so glad it's supported across the chamber, and I look forward to seeing this become law.

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