Nick Stace shares his thoughts regarding the unexpected cancellation of the GroceryCHOICE website, and asks for your help.

The report shows that Australian consumers suffer some of the greatest restrictions in relation to use of copyrighted material including music, DVD and published works. Australia comes in behind the United States and developing countries such as India, China and Indonesia.

The overall rankings of the 16 countries studied:

1. India
2. South Korea
3. China (PRC)
4. USA
5. Indonesia
6. Israel
7. Pakistan
8. Philippines
9. Australia
10. Malaysia
11. Spain
12. Chile
13. Brazil
14. Argentina
15. Thailand
16. UK

This report highlights the need for reform to the Australian copyright regime to protect legitimate consumer rights. Of particular concern is the right to transfer and share copyrighted information for non-commercial purposes. For example, current Australian laws do not allow any electronic to electronic format shifting or space shifting, such as ripping a DVD to play on your iPod.

At the moment, a person who does so could be fined or found guilty of a criminal offence. A consumer who has bought a film online should not be restricted from watching it on their portable media player – it’s manifestly unfair.

CHOICE thinks that legislative reform is needed to protect consumers’ rights to the fair use of copyrighted materials. The following changes are a few of the most basic needed to bring some balance back into copyright law and move Australia up the list closer to the USA. Such changes to Australian copyright laws should have happened with the harmonisation of laws between the US and Australia in the Free Trade Agreement.

Australians need:

• An extension of consumer rights to fair dealing beyond the current limited
  circumstances
• Ensuring copy protection and other technical restrictions do not stop
  consumers’ enjoying their existing legal rights to the use of copyrighted
  materials
• Prohibition on contracting out of limitations and exceptions.

Children are exposed to around 10 television food ads every day and almost two thirds of these are for unhealthy foods.

Go to www.burgercorp.com.au and send an email to Nicola Roxon urging an introduction of a ban on junk food advertising to children (tell her your own story too). And feel free to send the link on to your friends and family.

Selling junk foods to kids is big business – and a big headache for parents. In February, the South Australian Government called for a voluntary nationwide withdrawal of junk food ads during children’s television viewing, following a similar ban in the UK being phased in now.

March 15 is World Consumer Rights Day, and this year’s theme is “Junk Food Generation”. We’re inviting you to join the global consumer action to support healthier kids and happier parents.

You can help build momentum and influence decision-makers right now, by putting a human face to this issue. We want them to hear your story. If you’re into video, tell your story on YouTube as a video response or email ci@choice.com.au with the link (or let us know in the comments field below). We’ll add it to our playlist!

If video’s not really your thing, head over to CHOICE and tell us your story via our feedback form.

The audio recordings are in MP3 format, suitable for most music and media players.

Ramsey Moodie, Corporate Affairs Manager at Fuji Xerox, was a speaker at the congress session on sustainable consumption and tackling climate change.

During the course of his presentation Mr Moodie said “we’re all consumers, we’re all concerned. Once we realise our power we can change the world” (view Mr Moodie’s presentation).

He observed that in its submissions to 2 recent government inquiries, Fuji Xerox had supported an aspirational sustainability charter, but did not support mandatory sustainability reporting.

But then Mr Moodie observed that this position should perhaps be revisited.

Mr Moodie was questioned about how consumers could act responsibly, and choose good products over bad, if only some companies were doing sustainability reporting.

Mr Moodie responded “…in retrospect i’d probably change my position – and say let’s make it mandatory, to accelerate the whole disclosure process”.

The congress welcomed Fuji Xerox’s apparent endorsement of mandatory sustainability reporting

Other speakers at the session were Ed Mayo from the National Consumer Council UK and Alan Wu from the Australian National Commission for UNESCO [view presentation] .

www.flickr.com More photos in CI World Congress 2007

The photos are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Australia License.

An excerpt from Big Bucks Big Pharma, a documentary directed by Ronit Ridberg that was screened at the CI World Congress. A fascinating look at the marketing of drugs, both directly to consumers and to the medical industry, and the enormous influence it can have.

This statement, from former Merck sale rep Gene Carbona, provides some insight: “No matter where you spend money in pharmaceutical promotion…you make money. And my boss always told me: “Don’t worry about it; there will always be more funding. Spend what you can. In fact, if I give you $100,000 to spend, Gene, I want you to spend $200,000.”

Check out the website www.bigbucksbigpharma.org for more information.

Mr Ochieng’s appointment comes as the global consumer movement wraps up four days of debate, discussion and action around the theme of holding corporations to account.

On becoming the first African President of Consumers International in the organisation’s 47 years history, Mr Ochieng said:

I am certain that we are on our way to making CI an even stronger global consumer voice. For us to achieve maximum impact, we must focus on our well-targeted priorities.

The full list of Council members is on this page of the Consumers International web site.