25 May 2012

24 May 2012

21 May 2012

By James Hutchinson on May 2, 2012

1 May 2012

...We’ve got the recommendations from the Law Reform Commission, which I’ve said, and I stand by it, where they fall in terms of what’s in RC and what isn’t in RC, I don’t have a particular perspective . . . I’m very comfortable with what they’ve bought back. It fairly much aligns with the international list. I would hopefully be progressing that a little bit further soon. I would hope to be able to have some more conversations soon...

By James Hutchinson on May 1, 2012

T Flew on ABC24
30 April 2012

By tflew | Published: April 4, 2012

I will be presenting on the Australian Law Reform Commission Report 118 – Classification: Content Regulation and Convergent Media – at QUT, D214, Gardens Point Campus, from 12-2pm on Tuesday 10 April, 2012.

31 March 2012

Josh Taylor, ZDNet.com.au on March 29th, 2012

This review was released earlier this month, with a recommendation that the definition of the content that would be blocked under a mandatory filter should be narrowed to exclude sexual fetish-type material and minor criminal activities such as graffiti or use of proscribed drugs.

At a press conference today, Conroy said that the government was still reviewing the report, but added that it was in discussions with industry associations about getting member internet service providers (ISPs) to implement the filter.

The Australian Public Is Largely Unoffended By RC’d Video Games
Mark Serrels Kotaku AU March 23

Katy Gallagher - Chief Minister, Australian Capital Territory
The Australian Public Is Largely Unoffended By RC’d Video Games

March 21, 2012
Screen Disgest

includes sreen Digest's "take"

20 March, 2012

...When asked if the government will take into account a broader classification reform in line with the Australian Law Reform Commission review, the spokesperson said: “The Federal Government, along with state and territory governments, will consider the detailed work undertaken and the range of recommendations of the Commission.”...

Tim Lohman (Computerworld)
15 March, 2012

2 March 2012

By Stilgherrian, ZDNet.com.au on March 14th, 2012
Widely recognised problems with the definition of Refused Classification (RC) and scope creep over time led to mandatory filtering being put on hold in July 2010 while the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) conducted a review of content classification across all media.

The ALRC's final report was published on 1 March. It recommended that RC should be renamed "Prohibited" and be defined more narrowly. In particular, the government should review the ban on the depiction of sexual fetishes in films and "detailed instruction in the use of proscribed drugs", and consider limiting the ban on content that "promotes, incites or instructs in matters of crime" to "serious crime".

On the surface that sounds like it'll fix the problem. But note the weasel words: recommend, should, review, consider.

New laws would still have to be drafted and make it through parliament.

A government is under no obligation to follow ALRC recommendations. Recommendations on classification have been ignored in the past, when a porn-viewing session shocked conservative MPs with a variety of non-missionary-position recreations.

13 March 2012
Terry Flew

8 March 2012

Screen Hub
Friday 9 March, 2012

02 March, 2012 10:10

Posted on March 8, 2012

Posted on 08 March 2012

6 March 2012

6 March 2012

5 March 2012

A-G Media release
1 MArch 2012

Friday, March 2, 2012

Matt Johnston
From: Herald Sun
March 02, 2012

5 March 2012

...NAVA is particularly pleased to observe the ALRC's sensible decision not to follow the lead of previous Tasmanian Senator Guy Barnett who wanted Government to require the classification of all artworks.

By Laura Parker, GameSpot AU
Posted Mar 5, 2012 2:54

Monday, 05 March 2012 07:31
SmartCompany
Andrew Sadauskas

3 March 2012

2 March 2012
The Australian Law Reform Commission's (ALRC) suggestion of only filtering sub-categories of content classified as "prohibited" gives Communications Minister Stephen Conroy a nice out for his controversial policy.

2 March, 2012

March 1, 2012

2 March 2012

1 March 2012

2 March 2012

2 March 2012

2 March 2012
The Age and SMH

1 March 2012
Bianca Hall

A new R18+ classification for computer games should be introduced immediately, a parliamentary committee found yesterday. The issue has dragged through more than a decade of debate and three rounds of consultation. The majority of people who responded — 98 per cent — supported the proposal. Under existing laws, computer games are treated differently to films for classification purposes and cannot be classified at a higher level than MA15+. The lack of a classification specifically for adults means anything with adult content is refused classification. Gamers say some material meant for adults winds up with an MA15+ rating, making it more likely that children will be exposed to violent or sexual material.

9news
1 March 2012

National Times
1 March 2012

Classification Review: Final Report Recommends Industry Co-Regulation And Platform Neutrality

29 Feb 2012
It also referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission's review of the national classification scheme which recommended that games likely to rate higher than MA15+ should be classified before sale in Australia.

Meanwhile, the government's review of the national classification scheme could be tabled in parliament within weeks.

The ALRC has completed the review and sent its findings to Attorney-General Nicola Roxon's office.

It is understood that the Attorney-General has 15 sitting days to table the report in parliament. Parliament has one more sitting day this month, eight days in March and does not return again until May 8

29 Feb 2012
The government has previously indicated that legislation for the mandatory internet filter will be introduced once the Australian Law Reform Commission's (ALRC) recommendations on what content should be classed as "refused classification" has been considered by the government.

28 Feb 2012

Pressed on the matter of introducing legislation by McKenzie, Conroy stated that the Government would wait to speak about the matter until the ALRC’s Refused Classification report ...

21 Feb 2012

22 Feb 2012

In order to screen unclassified material, all Australian film festivals must request an exemption from classification for the content they have programmed. The Classification Board have chosen to refuse this exemption for two of the titles selected for this festival. Community Action Centre and In Their Room: Berlin. ...

16 Feb 2012

The Australian
November 21, 2011 12:00AM

A GRAPHICAL analysis of more than 1000 submissions to the ALRC's National Classification Scheme Review issues paper suggests the most effective means of controlling access to content was parental supervision and filtering, and not overarching regulation.

The textual analysis of submissions by ALRC Commissioner, Professor Terry Flew produced an analytical "concept tree" that found the term "adults" related to concepts such as "freedom", "government" and "censorship" while the term "children" related to "protect", "violence", "offensive" and "illegal".

It is also somewhat disturbing to see that, while the ALRC was being bold and brave about suggesting all these new classifications, when it came to the X classification they went weak at the knees and stated in Section 6: “If the Australian government decided to keep the X classification … ” Why would they not make a recommendation about this category as they have for many others? The fact is, they advised the federal government to introduce a new C for Children and T for Teen category. So why not recommend that X be legal in all jurisdictions as well, so they can achieve the truly uniform and consistent national scheme they say they want?

3 January 2012
Geordie Guy

21 December 2011
Chris Berg

Geordie Guy's Personal Blog
Published on December 21, 2011.

December 15th, 2011

Slate
James Losey and Sascha Meinrath
Dec. 8, 2011

The Senate’s PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House are supposed to address copyright infringement and counterfeiting. In reality, they are so technically impractical that they do little to address these problems. They would, however, undermine participatory democracy and human rights, which is why these bills have garnered near-universal condemnation from both human rights groups and technologists.

December 01, 2011
Filmink News

In wake of the Classification Review Board banning ‘The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence’ in Australia, the film’s distributor has offered up a damning response.

TechSpot
By Rick Burgess
November 29, 2011

Brisbane Times
November 29, 2011 - 3:53PM

Paul Syvret
From: The Courier-Mail, Opinion Piece
November 29, 2011

Yesterday, the Classification Review Board was due to meet to consider an appeal seeking that the film now be banned ...

A short column for Prospect, looking at censorship in digital publishing; first published June 2010
...
Courts, customers and philosophers can mull these queries all they like; but the only opinions that really matter are those of the companies controlling increasingly large parts of the world’s digital infrastructure. Apple is picky, Google famously less so. Yet there is nothing inevitable about either the one’s restrictions nor the other’s openness.

RC material 1970-2011

22 November 2011
Australian Policy Online

21 November 2011

Two of the internet's biggest pornography firms are suing the net's address regulator, Icann, over its introduction of the .xxx suffix.

Manwin Licensing and Digital Playground have also filed a lawsuit against ICM Registry, which is running the new top-level domain name (TLD).

The firms claimed that the decision to create .xxx had been flawed and that ICM had abused its position.

By Elizabeth Handsley - 15th November 2011
Happy Child.com.au

• by: Michael Bodey
• From: The Australian
• November 21, 2011 12:00AM

ABC Radio
18/11/2011

"Bill Henson told Nance Haxton he holds grave concerns about proposals by the Australian Law Reform Commission to introduce a classification system for works of art."

The Conversation
21 November 2011
Brian Martin

Elizabeth Handsley
November 11, 2011
Opinion

SMH Opinion
Elizabeth Handsley
November 11, 2011

Industry is looking like emerging the winner from a review into Australia's classification system for media including films.

A recent set of proposals on the classification system for media content is disturbingly industry friendly and contains little to help children and parents.

SMH
November 8, 2011 - 6:41AM

Australia's most prominent games academic says classification ministers are pandering to the fears of vocal minorities and lobbyists in proposed changes to games classification that include an R18+ rating.
...
Meanwhile, the Australian Law Reform Commission is continuing to work on recommendations to reform the entire classification system for all media.

A recent discussion paper released by the commission proposes that only games expected to be rated MA15+ or higher should be referred to the Classification Board for review.