Evaluation of Copyright Law Reforms to Facilitate Sharing of Repair Information

Background on 'Right to Repair' Issue

Students will be provided with an Australian Government Productivity Commission draft report [a separate document] which focuses on an interesting, pertinent and contemporary multifaceted policy matter in Australia, including Australian copyright law matters. In the draft report, the Productivity Commission proposes several possible recommendations regarding potential Australian copyright law reforms in light of the policy matter. Utilising the “Overview” of the draft report [approximately 34 pages], your assignment is to critically evaluate [supported by use of ten reference materials at minimum, inclusive of the draft report] the proposed copyright law reforms discussed in the draft report [the precise reforms to critically evaluate are provided below].

The word limit for the research assignment is 2200 words. Assignments that exceed the word limit by more than 10% may incur a penalty of 5 marks for every 100 words exceeding the word limit. For clarity, if your paper’s total word limit is more than 2420 words it may incur the penalty noted above. You are encouraged to use headings and subheadings within your paper. The assignment will be assessed in accordance with the criteria considerations provided under the assignments tab on Canvas.

Please list the total word count for your assessment answer at the top of your paper. References/footnotes are not included in the word count limit. A bibliography is not mandatory but appreciated.

Question 1: (2200 words) (40 marks)
The Productivity Commission Draft Report [June 2021]1 (‘draft report’) discusses the issue of the ‘right to repair’. According to the draft report, there are growing concerns in Australia and abroad that repairs of consumer products are becoming progressively more difficult, resulting in costly and wasteful outcomes for consumers and society. There are differing views on what a right to repair entails, as discussed in the draft report, however it may be associated with independent repairers and consumers having access to necessary parts, information and equipment needed to repair products, including access to embedded software in products, having the choice of repairer and being able to buy products that are repairable and durable. One of the stated reasons for the difficulty of repair, at least in part, is that products nowadays incorporate sophisticated technologies, which although provide many benefits to consumers, may at the same time increase the cost and complexity of repairs.

These concerns have led to calls for the Australian government to introduce a ‘right to repair’ to support consumers to repair their products (if they choose to do so). The draft report finds that there are barriers to repair for some products that policy reforms could potentially reduce. One category where proposed reforms are focused to support consumers to repair their products is intellectual property (IP)protection. Specifically, there are concerns that copyright is being used to unnecessarily restrict repairs, most notably regarding the inability of independent repairers to access repair information for products such as consumer electronics and agricultural machinery. It is claimed in the draft report that copyright is being used to impede access to two types of repair information: repair information such as manuals, and embedded (digital) repair information such as diagnostics.

Accordingly, your assignment is to review the draft report and critically evaluate [supported by use of reference materials] both of the following copyright law reforms proposed to facilitate the sharing of repair information, as discussed in the draft report:
• To amend the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) so repairers can legally procure tools required to access repair information hidden behind trusted platform modules (TPMs), such as digital locks;
• To amend the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) to allow repairers to reproduce and share copyright repair information (such as repair manuals and schematics) without the need to seek permission from the copyright holder under certain circumstances (for instance, through a new fair dealing exception or some other general copyright exception).