澳大利亞的知識產權（IP）和版權保護-Intellectual Property (IP) and Copyright pretection in Australia

1 Definition  定義

知識產權是指原有的發明者兼具藝術性和商業的作品的獨家權利。通常情況下，任何知識產權擁有控制一段時間的生產和適應的權利。

Intellectual Property means a bundle of exclusive rights over the original inventors as thanking to their creations of minds both artistic and commercial. Usually, any Intellectual property has endow the rights to control the reproduction and adaptation for a certain period.

知識產權在社會的應用領域方面，知識產權可以分為兩個分支：工業產權和版權[1]。工業產權涉及的技術和設計發明或專利，商業秘密，商標和資源，它保持原來的設計，風格或發明的對象，并提供擁有人專用權的商業開發初探權。著作權權利包括思想，研究，標識，多媒體，計算機程序，小說，詩歌，音樂，電影，繪畫，電視節目或錄像，廣播和其他原創作品的文學或藝術原始表達的所有權，這是受版權法保護的[2]。

As regards for the application fields of Intellectual Property in society, the IP could individed into two branchs: Industrial Property and Copyright[1]. The Industrial Property relates with the technological and design inventions or patents, trade secret, trademarks, and indication of resources, which maintains the concept of original design, style or object of invention and provides the owners exclusive right to commercial exploiation. The Copyright right includes the ownership of literary or artistic original expression of ideas, researches, logos, multimedia, computer progams, novels, poems, musics, films, drawings, television programs or recordings, broadcasters and other original works, which are protected by copyright laws[2]. As for the action of Intellectual Property, the society is aim to provide the motivation for the creators or authors to develop and share the property information rather than keep it as a secret. Thus, the IP is not only a permmition for the creation of mind, it also a strong protecting measure for the exclusive rights.

Over the years, the legal protection of the IP laws has guaranteed the credits for this kind of exclusive rights. For instance, along with pouplar application and internet network spreading, more and more copyrights are threatened into dangers through the widely application of DVDs, CDs, iPods and other similar mobile media devices. The cases of copyright offence increased such as Kazaa, Kulove other devices in the recent years[3]. Thus, the practise of Intellectual property is necessary to prevent the copyright from any infringement or plagiarism offences. The IP laws define that the works or papers including the progam designs, researchs papers, dissertations and other artistic works are reported with large parts of homologies with other original works, which are regarded as a infringement offences if also there is no any references information or note indications[4].#p#分頁標題#e#

2 Current Copyright laws for IP pretection in Australia  澳大利亞現行著作法對知識產權的保護
 

According to the special copyright of Austialia copyright laws, the copyright is an intangible thing based on the a person’s innovative abilities, which holds the authority by the creators and is different from the general physical property[5]. The copyright law is designed to prevent the illegal infringement offence from the original texture expressed by the author.

Though, the Copyrights authority of the original creators for original artistic works such as the research results, multimedia, and television programs are not registered specially, Australia hold the most strict liability for the copyright law bill. According to the 13 Nov. report of Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Commintee, it demonstrated that this kind of strict liability is a new measure to control both commmercial and non-commmercial copyright from infringement offence penalty system in Australia. The hugh changes for the sweeping revisions of copyright laws in Australia is based on the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and aim to welcome the arrival of digital era. Specially, the No-fault penalties which requires no proof of motive or knowledge of infringement offences are also included in the new IP laws in Australia[6]. The law also provided wide scale of right for government police and social prosecutors to against the suspected offenders according to the governmental explanatory memorandum.

As for the proposal of no-fault penalties, it gained strong support by the foes, lawmakers and some ardent backers, even from the other countries’ government department. Some domestic copyright owners said that the no-fault penalties will keep the infringement in a low-scale of spreading. “Moreover, other countries’ IP laws are not included the no-fault penalties with such strict liability such as United States, Britain, and Canada” said Larry Wilson. In fact, it required no such strict liability and no-fault penalties in the previous Australia-United States Free Trade Act and the Australian Industrial property laws[7].
 

3 Arguments for and against protecting IP  支持和反對知識產權保護的爭論
 

At once the proposal of such IP laws bill in Australia, it has brought to wide scale of sparked strong debates. Some supportors including the lawmakers, some governors argued that the approval of the bill would help to prevent the degeneration and neglection of copyright protection in future digital age though the strict liability or summary and indictable offences. Moreover, it is the time to precaution of widely infringement offences[6]. Thus, these supportors or the lawmakers believed that the bill of this new IP laws could reach the most effective limitation for before the phenomenon of infringement developed out of control.

However, the criticists believed that such strict law is not always necessary to protect the copyright of authors or designers[6]. They argued that the bill has itself poor point which maybe allow the policers or executors to indicte frequently more alleged offenders, though who could be penaled with lesser strict liability or summary offences. Otherwise, it increases the prossibility of innocent and mischarged infringement offenders. Especially, in the free culture movement the Intellectual protection or such monopoly control for Intellectual property is not very suitable to the culture advancement. If it is real, the public interest for modern culturation will be harm by the protecting item of IP laws such as copyright extension, software patents and management patents[1]. Therefore, though the Intellectual Property is widely used in the world, many critics oppposed it tegether through the united protest. That is why Richard Stallman stongly suggested one collective concept for disparating laws seperately[8].
 

4 Kazaa case in Australia  澳大利亞的Kazaa案例
 

Kazaa is one software based on the resource share such as music, television showing, digital data, books, games and movies on the internet network. It established by progammers of Dutch company consumer empowerment in 2001. Till now, the Kazaa has become the most welcomed file-sharing software with the amount of millions and thousands of users in the world[9].

Nevertheless, currently the Kazaa received the penal decision of the Federal Court of Australia for the infringement based internet sharing files. The decision of Australia considered the style of internet sharing of Kazaa as a serious infringement offence for their copyright laws in order to object the internet piracy and infringement. Finally, the Full Court decide to their judges and penality to order Kazaa cease the infringing copyright. The Kazaa is still contempt against with the lawsuit decision though they adopted some meatures to deal with the internet copyright laws such as halting download distribution[10].