ALRC Releases the Final Report for its Inquiry ‘Copyright and the Digital Economy’

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) today released the final report for its inquiry, Copyright and the Digital Economy. The ALRC was tasked with considering whether the current copyright exceptions are adequate in the digital era.

The Arts Law Centre of Australia (Arts Law) made a submission in response to the Issues Paper arguing against expanding the exceptions to copyright infringement.  The submission focused on both the economic impact on artists and the detriment to moral rights of artists that would result from permitting user generated content, sampling, remixes and mashups of copyrighted material.

Despite this, the ALRC has recommended replacing the current fair dealing exceptions with a broad open-ended fair use exception.

The final report is available here