[axxs-sysadmin] Mining Lobby suppressing free speech

[ned haughton]

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hey all, please forward this to relevant lists (including enviro,
intellectual property/free speech, and globalisation lists - the laws
this entails are part of the Australia US Free Trade Agreement).

also, put it up on as many blogs as possible, and link to the sites.

cheers
ned
	

NSW Minerals Council
attempts to silence critics

A satirical website created by climate action group Rising Tide
Newcastle has twice been shut down this fortnight by powerful coal
industry lobby group, the NSW Minerals Council.

The website was conceived as a response to the Minerals Council's “Life.
Brought to you by Mining” advertising campaign. The Minerals Council
campaign, which argues that mining is inextricable from modern luxury
can be viewed at www.nswmining.com.au. Rising Tide members created a
parody website at www.miningnsw.com.au in order to present the other
side of the story and address the damage wrought by mining to the local
and global environment and to the local community.

The parody website has twice been shut down following complaint by the
Minerals Council that the site breached copyright law. That claim is
hotly contested by the authors of the website, Rising Tide Newcastle,
who believe that the coal industry lobby group is simply trying to
silence growing public disquiet about the contribution of the export
coal industry to climate change.

Steve Phillips, spokesperson for Rising Tide Newcastle said, “The coal
export industry constitutes NSW's biggest single contribution to global
climate change. There is also growing public awareness of the terrible
impacts of coal mining on biodiversity, water and air quality. The
Minerals Council want people to know that luxury is dependent on mining:
All we want is for the public to be fully informed about the
consequences of that luxury, and to realise that while we can have jobs
without coal, and we can have energy without coal, we cannot have a coal
industry without climate change.”

Rising Tide has now moved the site to an off-shore host in order that
the information contained within it can remain in the public domain.

The website is officially relaunched as of today.

“The Minerals Council is abusing legal process to ensure that its
public-relations spin is unquestioned and that community criticism of
its methods or message is quashed as quickly as possible” said Ned
Haughton, the site’s graphical designer.

Mr. Phillips continued, "We have issued a counter-notice rejecting the
Minerals Council's spurious claims. The Minerals Council now has ten
days in which to take the matter further."

“The Minerals Council say they want a “balanced debate” on the impacts
of coal mining on local, regional, and global environments – we welcome
that wholeheartedly. Their rhetoric however, is sharply at odds with
their attempts to silence legitimate criticism from community groups.”

Please see the following page for background information on this case.

For more information:
Ned Haughton on 0417 484 735
Steve Phillips on 0437 275 119.

Background

On February 19th this year, the NSW Minerals Council (NSWMC) launched an
expensive public relations campaign with the slogan “Life: Brought to
you by mining.” The campaign includes billboards, television, and
newspaper advertisements, and the website www.nswmining.com.au

Shortly after the launch of the NSWMC website, Rising Tide Newcastle
(RTN)set up a satirical and critical website at www.miningnsw.com.au.
This website was a mirror image of the NSWMC website, except that the
text was different, describing the negative social and environmental
effects of the mining industry.

The hosts of the RTN website were contacted by NSWMC lawyers within 24
hours of the launch of the site. The NSWMC lawyers abused a clause of
the Commonwealth Copyright Regulations to forced the website hosts to
remove the site. RTN created the original website as a satirical
imitation of the NSWMC site, with rewritten commentary. While this was
most probably legal under the Copyright Act's Fair Dealing clause as a
parody, the hosts were legally required to remove the site pending a
response to the Minerals Council's claim of copyright infringement,
which did not specify the articles of alleged copyright.

RTN then completely re-made the site, with original layout and images
that were either original or used with permission, in order to remove
all possibility of copyright infringement. The NSWMC lawyers
nevertheless contacted the new website hosts within 24 hours, with a
similar claim letter, and again had the site removed under Regulation
20J of the Copyright Regulations.

While the site had not contravened any copyright laws, as the lawyers
for the NSWMC may well have known, the host was again legally obliged to
remove the site.

RTN have submitted a counter-notice, rejecting the allegations of the
NSWMC. The NSWMC now have a 10 period in which they can take the matter
further, which would require taking RTN to court over the incident.

In the meantime, the RTN website has been relaunched with an offshore
host. International copyright law does not have the same automatic
take-down clause of Australian copyright law.


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