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Archive for the ‘IT Law’ Category

Cooper Mills guest author, Senior Brand Strategist, James Grant Hay examines the implications of the device on the Australian media industry and publishing sector

Many believe the iPad and iBookstore will do for the publishing industry what the iPod and iTunes store did to the music industry in 2001. Back then, iTunes accelerated the decline of their business model and tore apart the original bundles of records subsequently sold to consumers at unit price. Will our local media industry and publishing sector share the same fate or embrace the iPad as a revolution of the digital age?

So far, the signs have been encouraging. The Australian Publishers Association report that Australian publishers have been in extensive talks with Apple over the last few months in an effort to seal licensing deals for Australia. Although the iBookstore is not expected to be available to Australian users on launch, that date is likely to change quickly as the Australian Publishers Association has confirmed licensing deals are well on the way to being completed this year.

In the US, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has announced eBook deals with five of the world’s leading publishers – Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan.

These talks have been hastened with the arrival of other eReader devices. Amazon (with its Kindle) and Barnes & Noble (with the Nook) have the potential to diminish the importance of publishing companies altogether through the use of self-publishing platforms by authors.

To avoid this, Australian publishers have in the last 12 months been paying a lot of attention to digitisation and preparing for electronic works to ensure plenty of titles are available to Australian consumers. But until a sufficient number of these titles are in place, it will be imperative for the Federal Government to lift the ban on book sellers from buying cheap foreign imports from overseas sellers. Currently, parallel importation rules prevent stores from sourcing books at lower costs from overseas markets. Retailers, such as Borders will need to respond to the growing consumer demand.

REDgroup, owners of booksellers Angus & Robertson and Borders – are already planning 1 million titles that can be downloaded across multiple technologies in Australia.

The challenge for publishers therefore will be the speed with which they can port their back catalogues to digital. Porting books to the digital world is difficult because entire back catalogues must be digitised in different formats and publishers should seek professional legal advice on redrafting and in some cases renegotiating copyright deals with authors and estates for the purposes of digital distribution.

Only two leading publishers have converted Australian print books to digital form in significant numbers – Allen & Unwin has a library of 1500 titles, while Pan Macmillan Australia has 500 titles ready to go digital.

Newspapers and magazines are also planning to sell content on the device through digital apps, but The New York Times is the only publisher to have revealed its offering so far.

News Ltd spokesman Greg Baxter refused to comment to Australian media on its iPad plans last week, but Brian McCarthy, chief executive of Fairfax Media, has been bullish about the prospects for the new device.

The iPad will allow newspapers and magazines to be easily read electronically in a format that many readers will enjoy while also linking pages directly with breaking news and videos on their digital mastheads, such as The Age. Fairfax is reportedly developing apps that could be used on both the iPad and iPhone.

With sales of Amazon Kindle devices outstripping actual print book sales in the US over Christmas, the Apple iPad is sure to be a hot seller amongst Australian consumers.

Among the questions to be contemplated by publishers over the coming months will be the meaning of their brand in a tablet world – to avoid the fate of the music labels, publishers such as Pacific Magazines will need to determine how to maintain individual brands in their overall stable, rather than individual stories; in other industries, companies will need to decide if the most potent expression of their brand is bundling existing free web products with a premium pay-wall subscription, or in the case of Sports Illustrated below, an entirely new multimedia product.

Watch and embed the Sports Illustrated player

James Grant Hay is CEO of Inshot, Branded Content Specialists

Tags: brand strategy, copyright infringement, copyright law, ipad, IT Law, IT Lawyer, IT Lawyers, James Grant Hay
Posted in General, IT Law | No Comments »

According to news reports, German researchers claimed to have cracked the A5/1 encryption technology used to encrypt GSM mobile phone calls, which represents approximately 80% of the worlds mobile phone users.

These claims have raised concerns with some mobile operators, who claim that if this finding were to be used by criminals, GSM telephone call could be intercepted and monitored relatively easily and cost effectively. This type of conduct is prohibited under Australian law.

IT and Telecommunications Lawyer, Erhan Karabardak, Principal of Cooper Mills Lawyers, said:

“whilst these claims, if true, could pose a serious concern, it is unlikely to pose a threat to GSM communications in the short term“.

Tags: Telco Law, Telco Lawyers, Telecom Law, Telecom Lawyers, telecommunications law, Telecommunications Lawyers
Posted in ISP and Telco Law, IT Law, Uncategorized | No Comments »

To all of our clients and visitors to our blog, we wish you seasons greetings and a safe and prosperous new year.

Thank you for your support in 2009, and we look forward to working with you in 2010.

Our office will be re-open on 11 January 2010.

Stay tuned for our new IT Law, Telecommunications Law, Domain Law and general Commercial Law articles / posts.

Tags: Commercial Law, domain law, domain name law, IT Law, telecommunications law
Posted in Domain law and domaining, General, ISP and Telco Law, IT Law, Podcasts, Privacy, Spam, Trade Practices Law, Uncategorized | No Comments »

We are working on bringing you some more new and interesting IT Law and Domain Law posts and articles shortly.

To assist us to cater to our audience, if you have any specific requests for IT Law, Domain Law or Telecommunications Law articles or information, feel free to drop us a note at info@coopermills.com.au

Tags: domain law, domain lawyer, IT Law, IT Lawyer, telecommunications law, Telecommunications Lawyers
Posted in Domain law and domaining, General, ISP and Telco Law, IT Law, Podcasts, Privacy, Spam, Trade Practices Law, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Up to one million users who have modified their Xbox game consoles to play pirated games have blocked from logging onto their online accounts.

Microsoft has said that:

“all consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live.”

Machines which are physically altered by attaching extra chips and other hardware violate Microsoft’s terms of use. Although Microsoft can do little to prevent offenders from using their machines to play pirate games, they can cut of online access which in many cases will cut off access to large parts of the game as more and more titles promote an online play element.

Online piracy is becoming an issue of growing concern for the entertainment industry.  Industries have to implement new techniques to prevent piracy from occurring. The music and film industry in the UK has lobbied for the new “three strikes” policy which comes into effect in April 2010. This will require ISPs to suspend internet services of those who ignore piracy warnings.

These new regulatory measures come as a backdrop to the AFACT/IINET case being fought in The Federal Court, about ISPs allegedly allowing copyright infringers to use ISP services.

Tags: domain name lawyers, ISP Lawyers, ISP piracy, IT Lawyers, Telecommunications Lawyers
Posted in General, ISP and Telco Law, IT Law | No Comments »

In a report published by The Australian, it has been revealed that journalists have been using microblogging tool Twitter to provide live updates on the iiNet Case being heard before the Federal Court in Sydney.

According to The Australian, Justice Cowdrey said:

On the basis that Twittering does not distract or interfere with the conduct of my court, I personally have no objection to its use. I believe that the public has a legitimate right to be fully informed of proceedings, particularly proceedings such as (the iiNet case) which have attracted considerable public interest. Twittering can serve to inform the public in a more speedy and comprehensive manner than may be possible through traditional media coverage.

Ordinarily any form of recording device such as a video camera or tape recorder is prohibited in a Court, however, there are times where Judges will all the use of such devices.

This appears to be the first time where a Court has specifically addressed the issue of Twitter use within a Court room.

According to IT Lawyer and Cooper Mills Lawyers Principal, Erhan Karabardak:

This will not come as a surprise to many lawyers, who use laptops with wireless internet to send emails from within the Court during a proceeding.

Tags: Federal Court of Australia, IT Law, IT Lawyer, IT Lawyers, Twitter
Posted in General, IT Law | No Comments »

The website of the Prime Minister and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) were the subject of an attack yesterday, in support of protest against the Government’s internet filtering program.

This type of attack is called a Denial of Service attack, where hackers flood a website with traffic causing the website to go down. This is a regular occurrence across the internet, but this time the motivation was political and specifically targeted at both the Prime Minister who government introduced the policy, and the ACMA who are administering the internet filtering trials.

It is reported that the attack occurred shortly after 7pm AEST, which took the affected websites off line for a short period of time, both sites now appear to be operating normally.

The attack allegedly carried out by the hacker known as ‘Anonymous’, was labelled as juvenile by Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today.

The attack demonstrates how deeply unpopular the government’s planned internet filtering is within the community. This time most have been surprised at what lengths protesters are prepared to go to, to make their point. Is this just the start ?

Tags: censorship, internet filtering, IT Lawyer, Telecommunications Lawyers
Posted in ISP and Telco Law, IT Law | No Comments »

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) yesterday announced that Australia’s largest Telco Telstra breached the Do Not Call Register Act (“Act”) and was fined $101,200.

The ACMA claims that one of Telstra’s external call centres in Australia made telemarketing calls to numbers listed on the Do Not Call Register (the Register). The ACMA began investigations in August 2008 following a raft of consumer complaints about calls to numbers listed on the Do Not Call Register. According to the ACMA:

The investigation found that inadequate compliance systems, procedures and supervision had contributed to calls being made to numbers on the Register where the consumers were not existing Telstra customers.

In addition to the fine, Telstra was forced to enter into enforceable undertakings with the ACMA, which included the appointment of external consultants to review Telstra’s compliance procedures.

In clarifying its expectations, the ACMA said that it:

expects large businesses like Telstra to be leading the way and setting an example when it comes to compliance with the Do Not Call Register – not falling behind.

This is at odds with its earlier treatment of the Westpac Bank who only received a warning for breaches earlier this year – Westpac Bank breaches Act.

In commenting on the ACMA’s action, Cooper Mills Director and IT & T Lawyer Erhan Karabardak said that:

It is positive to see that the ACMA is taking enforcement of the Act seriously, but the inconsistency in penalties may be something for the ACMA to consider in future. Although each case needs to be assessed on its own facts, any perceived inconsistencies in treatment may undermine the efforts of the ACMA.

Tags: ACMA, Erhan Karabardak, ISP Lawyers, IT Lawyers, Telco Lawyers, Telecom Lawyers, Telecommunications Lawyers
Posted in ISP and Telco Law, IT Law, Privacy | No Comments »

Google today announced that it had been working on a secret project to build the next generation of Google’s dominant search engine.

The operating development search engine is accessible at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/.

According to Google:

It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results.

Google’s aim at making the developmental search engine available is to gather feedback on the impact the new architecture may have on individual websites.

We have found that the new development search engine ranks our site lower than the existing search engine. The question that naturally arises is whether the next generation of Google’s search engine will rewrite the rules on search engine optimisation – only time will tell….

Tags: IT Law, IT Lawyers, SEO
Posted in Domain law and domaining, General, IT Law, Uncategorized | No Comments »

According to reports on Broadband News website Whirlpool, the iPrimus data centre at 55 King Street Melbourne was crippled over the weekend due to a now all to common data centre blackout.

Whirlpool says:

The power dropped around 3:45PM and caused Victorian and Tasmanian customers from ISPs such as Exetel, iiNet, Internode and Netspace to lose their broadband connections.

Internode was able to route around the problem by 4:15PM, while the other ISPs were back online around 5:30PM.

In a notice to customers, Primus blamed “high tension fuses in the CitiPower substation feeding our Data centre”, which it said was the same issue affecting power in February.

Backup diesel generators “failed to start due to a synchronization processor failure.” According to the notice, works to upgrade the substation that failed were already planned for next weekend.

With a recent outage in February 2009, one would have thought that Primus would have been more proactive in avoiding a repeat of the previous disaster.

The outage provides a timely reminder for companies with critical data centre need to ask their data centre provider simple questions such as:

1. what redundant power arrangements are in place ?

2. how often is the power redundancy system tested ?

3. is there a meaningful SLA to give some level of assurance, and financial compensation if the worst does happen ?

These are some simple yet important questions to ask, if your data centre provider cannot answer these questions satisfactorily, then you should consider whether they are the best provider for your mission critical hosting requirements.

Tags: data centre, ISP Lawyers, IT Law, IT Lawyers, telecommunications, Telecommunications Lawyers
Posted in ISP and Telco Law, IT Law | No Comments »