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The press release just came in across the Linux Aus­tralia mailing lists:

Linux Australia Urges the Federal Govt. Not to Abandon Consumer and Competition Interests

Linux Aus­tralia, Australia’s peak Free and Open Source Soft­ware com­mu­nity group, announced the launch of a peti­tion today calling on the federal gov­ern­ment to resist pres­sure to abandon con­sumer and com­pe­ti­tion rights when draft­ing anti-​circumvention laws. New laws are required under the terms of the Free Trade Agree­ment nego­ti­ated between Aus­tralia and the United States.

“The treaty doesn’t force us to imple­ment this like the US, where these laws have driven lit­i­ga­tion to sup­press aca­d­e­mic pub­li­ca­tions, prevent third-​party printer car­tridge man­u­fac­tur­ers, and elim­i­nate com­pe­ti­tion by Open Source soft­ware. But nat­u­rally some large busi­ness inter­ests are press­ing for the same restric­tions on legit­i­mate access to digital mate­r­ial here.” said Rusty Russell, Linux Australia’s IP Policy Adviser.

“Con­sumers should con­tinue to enjoy full use of their legit­i­mately pur­chased digital mate­r­ial, whether it be playing DVDs, copying CDs onto their iPods, using com­puter pro­grams of their choice, or playing iTunes-​bought songs on non-​iPod MP3 players. You’ve paid for it, you use it as you see fit.”

Con Zymaris, a direc­tor with the Open Source Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion, joined with Russell. “Aus­tralian small busi­nesses are world-​class at using, deploy­ing and build­ing Open Source soft­ware. We must be free to do so without fear of law­suits from the larger incum­bents we compete against.”

Linux Aus­tralia Pres­i­dent Jon Oxer called for a focus on con­sumer rights and support. Oxer urged all those who would be affected by the new laws to down­load a copy of the peti­tion and get as many sig­na­tures as pos­si­ble.

“If we don’t push back now, Aus­tralian com­pe­ti­tion, con­sumer rights and free­doms will be ham­strung as we enter the digital age.”

The peti­tion and online state­ment can be found at http://​linux.​org.​au/law.

Rusty Russell can be con­tacted on 0417 451212.

About Linux Australia

Linux Aus­tralia exists to serve and promote the Aus­tralian Linux and Open Source com­mu­nity. The organ­i­sa­tion aims to do this best by taking enthu­si­asms within the com­mu­nity, such as FOSS issues, projects, edu­ca­tion, advo­cacy just to name a few, and help them flour­ish, to succeed. The lifeblood of this organ­i­sa­tion is the people in the com­mu­nity, and Linux Aus­tralia strives to be both rel­e­vant and useful to the com­mu­nity. For more details on Linux Aus­tralia visit http://​linux.​org.au.

About OSIA

OSIA is the national indus­try body for Open Source within Aus­tralia. We exist to further the cause of both Free and Open Source Soft­ware (FOSS) in Aus­tralia and to help our members to improve their busi­ness success in this growing sector of the global Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­ogy (ICT) market. For more infor­ma­tion about OSIA please visit http://​www.​osia.​net.au.

Edit: There is going to be a live online Q&A session with Rusty Russell, this Friday, June 16 at 20:30 (UTC+1000) on the issue. Ques­tions will be put forth in the #linux-​aus IRC channel on the irc.​freen​ode.net network. The audio stream will be located at http://together.linux.org.au:8000/la_talk.ogg.

Update: Cheers to Stewart Smith and the CGI:IRC project you can now access the IRC Q&A session using just a web browser, here.

Update 2#: The broad­cast was recorded and links to it and it’s cor­re­spond­ing slides can be found here.