On Friday 47 organisations from across Australia sent a letter to the Minister for Communications and the Arts supporting the Productivity Commission's recommendation that Australia should adopt a flexible fair use exception. 

All signatories to the letter - including representatives of schools, universities, libraries, archives, disability groups, consumer groups, technology companies and others - agree that fair use is critical to ensure that the Australian economy is best placed for a strong digital future. As the Productivity Commission outs it:

there are firm grounds now, and even stronger grounds looking to the future, for amending the Copyright Act to replace Australia’s current exceptions with a broader fair use exception. The key policy question for Government should be how to design exceptions that maximise the net benefit to the community. Importantly, fair use … reinforces that user interests should also be recognised by Australia’s copyright system. [p.18]

The full list of signatories and text of the letter is reproduced below. For more on the Productivity Commission's recommendation, see our previous posts here and here.