Promoting And Protecting Digital Rights Since 1994
EFA is an independent non-profit association that relies on membership subscriptions and donations. If you’re concerned about digital rights in Australia, please join or donate today.
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Contested Footy blog receives cease and desist
ContestedFooty.com, an AFL commentary blog run by some university students in Melbourne, has received a Cease & Desist letter from the AFL. The AFL allege that the blog infringes their intellectual property rights – both the trademarks and the copyright in the AFL and team logos and names.
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IEEE SSIT forum: "WOW, they’re uncontrollable: Online games, censorship and the crisis of control" (Melbourne, 13 May 2009)
Dr Greg Adamson, Chair, SSIT Australia advises that the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) is running a forum next week about online gaming and censorship that promises to be very interesting. WOW, they’re uncontrollable: Online games, censorship and the crisis of control 6:00-7:30pm, Wednesday 13 May 2009 Dr. Jeffrey E. Brand, Associate Dean and Head of School, Communication and Media, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bond…
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EFA links removal notice – a free speech analysis
Today EFA’s hosting provider received a Final Link Deletion Notice from ACMA, requiring us to remove a link to a page that contains images of aborted foetuses from our website. We have complied with this notice because it exposes our host to fines of up to $11,000 per day that we do not remove the link. This post examines some of the free speech arguments and technicalities of potential appeals…
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EFA gets link removal notice
EFA’s web hosting provider was today the recipient of a Link Deletion notice from ACMA for an article on our web site ironically entitled “Net censorship already having a chilling effect“. The original article included a link to a page at abortiontv.com that includes graphic images and was previously added to ACMA’s blacklist for being “R-18+”-level material. (For more information on the ACMA net censorship system, see here and here.)…
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Melb Event – The Tangled Web: Beyond An Internet Filter
newmatilda.com presents a national series of public forums about the internet regulation debate in Australia. The Federal Government’s proposal to block internet sites with a mandatory filter has drawn overwhelming opposition from voices across politics and civil society. So what are the real questions for policy-makers? These forums explore the ethical, social and political questions raised by government regulation of the internet. With the growing intersection between technology, politics and…
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Pirate bay operators found guilty. Where to from here?
A few days ago, a Swedish court found the four figures behind thepiratebay.org guilty of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced them to pay approximately $5M AUD in damages and serve a one year prison sentence. The severity of the punishment is surprising, particularly as the operators of the Pirate Bay played a fairly loose role in any copyright infringements — merely providing an index of torrents already posted and tracked…
Help fight for our digital rights
What We Do
Policy
We actively monitor a number of policy areas and specific issues. The topics below provide a detailed view of EFA’s policy positions.
Copyright
Australia’s copyright laws are outdated, inflexible and not fit for the digital age. As such, EFA is a long-standing supporter of reform of Australia’s Copyright Act.
Privacy & Security
Privacy is fundamentally about consent and control over access to information, and goes hand-in-hand with security. Privacy is a human right.
Censorship
Adults should be able to make their own informed decisions about what content they create and consume.
Encryption
Access to encryption technologies is vital for individuals and groups to be able to safeguard the security and privacy of their information.
Internet Safety
Surveillance is not safety. Safety for whom, against what? This complex problem is more likely to be exacerbated, rather than solved, by measures that allow for unaccountable surveillance and the undermining of communications security.
Surveillance
EFA is committed to ensuring that Australian’s home life is not subject to arbitrary interference.