Using music on websites and client DVD's

[farmer_rob]

I can assure you Rob that both Canon and Nikon Australia would love the copyright act to cover "grey" imports. Unfortunately, I've never been aware of that act being used or even potentially used in this situation.


Perhaps its your turn to show us which part of the Australian copyright act would substantiate your point

Aaahhh... Hoist by my own petard . I can't point to specific areas, although if software is copyrightable under the Australian Act - which I believe it is - the copyright holder can then impose the licence conditions.

I am sure Canon and Nikon *Australia* would, but they don't own the copyright to the software, and I doubt they have been given exclusive rights in Australia by the owners (ie "head office"). Canon and Nikon Japan could stop the grey market very easily - just cut off sales to the distributors who advertise grey market products - but it makes no difference to head office on a) the bottom line and b) the market image if the grey market exists or not, and so I don't think "head office" cares that the Australian subsidiaries are upset. Parallel sales channels are an interesting problem for companies, because the value of the different channels is really only assessible in intangibles (such as market penetration and brand protection). This is one of the issues Harvey Norman is struggling with, because an online shopfront will really p*** off his stores (that are often franchise operations).

Pat: Sony had campaigned strongly for the introduction of anti-circumvention legislation (which was introduced around 2000). The problem Sony has is that if you mod the playstation, you can use programs sourced from other suppliers, and reduce Sony licenced revenue (from its official suppliers.) They (Sony, Microsoft et al) wi'll do whatever they can to stop you modding the box. Also, boxes such as the playstation and Xbox are way underpriced for the computing power within (e.g. US army purchased 2200 for supercomputer), but are sold as loss-leaders to get the ongoing software revenue. There is a push in the US to try and squash the secondary market in games (as a breach of copyright), although others argue that the secondary market helps push the primary market (see here)

BTW, the US government's ACTA and TPP negotiations are likely to ensure that US copyright law gets propogated to other countries such as Australia - so actions over there should be of interest.

[Longshots]

Yep good theory Rob, but as I said, what you're talking about is not copyrightable, where as software is - very different beasts.

And yes re you BTW, interestingly in another topic here recently I kept trying to explain that one of the slightly hidden aspects of the American Australian Free Trade Agreement, was that our copyright laws actually increased their coverage. The one thing I can assure you is that IMHO while we may adopt many increases to our copyright law, we are also going to have to respond to the move for something called Creative Commons - very heavily promoted by a certain Australian university and has a lot of support in the US.

The same thing of world wide markets within individual countries and individual companies such as the difference between Canon US, Canon Australia and Canon in the wholsale market are eventually going to face all of us as individuals.

[Redgum]

I don't think grey market imports are in any way illegal or immoral. In fact, I think this is something that manufacturers are going to have to look at in the short term. With such an international market, it is crazy to be able to buy a lens in Australia for $1,000 or from Singapore for $600 including shipping! I think that the only people who have a problem with this are the manufacturers, and Gerry Harvey.

I've written several pieces for SMH on grey market products. In fact the manufacturers actively promote the "grey" market (obviously because they supply the goods) and it is in their interest to provide the brioadest market possible (profit). The Nikon channel in Australia is a private company, not part of Nikon as such and in fact could quite easily change tomorrow if another company out bid them. Canon is slightly different.
In fact, if channel marketing/sales were disbanded the price of camera gear would halve overninght - but is that good or bad? It would certainly destroy the asset value of camera gear, particularly lens. Most professionals wouldn't worry because of the frequency of renewal and tax breaks but existing enthusiasts woould be crushed by certain devaluation almost immediately. "Big" cameras wouldn't matter anymore. It would be interesting to watch the volume of camera sales in Oz. Most manufacturers believe it would go down with an open market.

[farmer_rob]

Yep good theory Rob, but as I said, what you're talking about is not copyrightable, where as software is - very different beasts....

But I am talking about software - the embedded software in the camera that you might also refer to as firmware (no difference copyright wise, just technically). Your camera (any digital camera) will not work without software. This software is covered in exactly the same way as any program on your computer.

Re the BTW - I would prefer australian copyright law to be decided by australia and not america. CC could technically apply here AFAIK, since it is a license under copyright law, so we will need to deal with it. (Perhaps more of a problem for those that don't actually understand what rights they are assigning, and for commercial photographers who have another competitive problem.)