Law professor and intellectual property (IP) expert Kimberlee Weatherall has described the latest changes to IP law as horrible in an interview with BuilderAU.

Weatherall described the process by which the laws were written as hideous and rushed -- and that "We probably couldn't have lost worse than we did. We didn't get fair use, we didn't get flexibility, we just got more and more complicated legislation".

Linux Australia's IP policy adviser, Rusty Russell stated that there would be three years of waiting until "we find out what the legislation actually means" and that Australia is pushing copyright extensions onto other countries even though "it was something we specially opposed when the Americans pushed it onto us".

The comments were made during linux.conf.au, at the end of which Weatherall was presented with the "Rusty Wrench", an annual award for most positive impact on the Australian open source community.

View the complete interview with transcript

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