StopPiracy

Reporting Copyright Infringements - Australian High Tech Crime Centre

Many of the groups actively involved in acts of piracy thumb their noses up when contacted by the designer to end the copyright infringement often because designers don't follow up by filing complaints with the appropriate authorities.

In the Australia reports may be filed with the Australian High Tech Crimes Center (AHTCC) which is a nationally coordinated body ::

The AHTCC is staffed by members of the Australian Federal Police and State and Territory police from throughout Australia, as well as representatives from private industry and government departments. (ref AHTCC About Us)

You can find the Online Crime Reporting submission form here which is specifically for the reporting of instances of high-tech crime in Australia.

If you are an Australian designer that has been affected by an act of piracy, it is well worth filing a complaint with AHTCC as well as the Internet Crime Complaints Center (IC3 - the US based FBI/National White Collar Crime Center partnership) because of international cross-over of jurisdictions between designer, selling point (ie the digital scrapbooking store/s that the designer sells through) and the location of the individual/s or group/s that initiated or is involved in that act of piracy.

More links to learn about piracy.

If you ever come across an interesting and informative website that you think would fit well here, please e-mail me and let me know!  (jenstrangeATgmailDOTcom)  Here are a few websites a friend shared with me that are a great source of information.

Canadian Intellectual Property Office

Arts and Crafts Law
-- Articles: on this page are three articles.
-- Recommended Reading: a list of books you can buy at Amazon to help understand copyright as it relates to crafts and creative arts.

Rights for Artists . org
-- Examples: this page at the top has links to examples of communications that artists might need to use -- terms of use, cease & desist, to a site host, to a collection site.

More websites about piracy.

I moderate comments around here because I've learned that the kind of people who make it necessary to have this blog in the first place -- you know, the people who like to steal things and refuse to accept that it's wrong -- can be pretty nasty.  So you will no longer see their nasty comments, although I still get the pleasure of reading them.

Anyway, the other day I got one from someone in or around London that said "lol, i just stumbled upon this blog from google. dude, do u really think by doing this, piracy will somehow disappear? havent u got a real job?"  Well yes, I do have a real job, and I choose to do this in my free time because it's important to me.  And no, I don't think piracy in all its forms will magically disappear.  But specific to digital scrapbooking, this site has made a lot of progress already as far as education, awareness, and centralized information for the problem.

Now just so you don't think I'm the only one on the internet concerned about piracy in the industry I'm involved in, here are some piracy specific websites from several different industries and organizations.  Entities much bigger and more important than little ole me (you know, like the FBI.)

1. United States FBI:  piracy site

2. United States Patent and Trademark Office: piracy site

3. Motion Picture Association of America: piracy site

4. Copyright Infringement and Piracy Watch: http://www.copynot.com/

5. Microsoft:  piracy site

6. The Software & Information Industry Association is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry:  piracy site

7. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry:  piracy site

8. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. ("SFWA"): piracy site

9. The Alliance Against IP (intellectual property) Theft is the new name for the Alliance Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, a unique coalition of British trade associations and industry enforcement organisations:  piracy site

10. www.piracyisacrime.com/ 

Copyrights in Australia

Through the Australian Government Intellectual Property Office you can find specific information about Intellectual Property rights and Copyright in Australia: IP Australia - Copyrights 

The Australian Copyright Council has an Online Information Centre ~ they have a number of valuable resources and information sheets available for download in .pdf format: Copyright Information Sheets 

An online copy of the consolidated Australian Copyright Legislation is available through the Australasian Legal Information Institute: Australian Copyright Act 1968   The specific sections of the act dealing with the protection of works in electronic format can be found here: Protection of Electronic Works  ~ a bit on the wordy side but definitely worth having a look.
 

U.S. Copyright Office

Have you seen this site? http://www.copyright.gov/

It has a LOT of useful copyright information -- straight from the U.S. Government!

Of particular interest are the links in the FAQ section under "Copyright and Digital Files."  There is a link that says "Is it legal to download works from peer-to-peer networks and if not, what is the penalty..." -- go check it out!!!!