Australian MMOs - a sting in the tail
Australia MMO Action creates unintended consequences
The long running action between Copyright Austarlian – the licensing body – and MMOs has a twist in the tail. Despite the Copyright Tribunal supporting the MMO objection and (very strangely) ordering the major publishers not to pull out of the deal, MMOs have woken up to the fact that the order lasts three years and the dominant local publishers News and Fairfax will clearly head for the hills as soon as they can. Accordingly iSentia and Cision owned Streem are now keen to find a way forward. And Meltwater have found that publishers have no incentive to access to paywall websites, payment for which is outside the Copyright Tribunals terms of reference. Moral of the story seems to be you get what you pay for. And that lawyers may enjoy tribunals, they can rarely overturn commercial common sense.
