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@PeterC said:I doubt you quote very large chunks of the Act without proper attribution. I’m no expert but I thought that there was a concept of ‘fair dealing’ or similar which allowed one to quote up to some percentage of a work if it is attributed and part of reasonable comment. Consequently, I would have thought it would be legal and quite appropriate if you were to quote a section of the Act in the context of commentary about why it should be changed or an explanation of what it means.
Yes, you are right. ‘Fair dealing’ allows you to quote material but not, as you say, without attribution and then rarely in its entirety.
As someone who makes a living from producing copyrighted material, it annoys me when “freetards” think they can pass anyone’s work off as their own, or “research”, just because it’s on the Internet.
The material the now-departed SMO referred to was a lengthy piece of mine that he posted on the net on another website which was set up as a rival to Flat Chat (financed, I might add by one of the country’s largest developers). I’m sure you can appreciate why I insisted they take it down immediately.
Anyway, this is what the Wikipedia entry on copyright law says on “fair dealing”.
The main exceptions to copyright infringement in Australia come under the general heading fair dealing … in order to be a fair dealing under Australian law a use must fall within a range of specific purposes. These purposes vary by type of work, but the possibilities are: review or criticism; research or study; news-reporting; judicial proceedings or professional legal advice; parody or satire (added by the Copyright Amendment Act 2006)
FYI: I think that quote, properly attributed and linked to the original, would be considered “fair dealing” too.