On 14 October 2011, the Attorney General released a consultation
paper proposing to broaden the scope of the 'safe harbour
scheme' contained in the Copyright Act 1986 (Cth). The scheme
aims to encourage cooperation between Carriage Service Providers
(CSPs) and copyright owners in deterring copyright infringement on
the CSPs' networks.
The consultation paper can be found here.
The current scope of the safe harbour scheme
The current safe harbour scheme, introduced into the Copyright
Act in 2006, provides CSPs with protection from some remedies being
granted against them for copyright infringement, provided certain
conditions are satisfied. The scheme is limited in its application
in that it is restricted to CSPs as defined under the
Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth). In practice, it means that
the scheme is only available to those that provide network access
to the public, thereby excluding organisations or businesses that
provide internet access to limited groups
