Amidst all the current discussion over the threats of facial recognition software and message encryption to personal privacy and online discourse, other more longstanding contractions of our everyday public space continue their creep. Thus the ABC can publish an online article today quoting legal advice that parents should not video their kiddies at school concerts because they are infringing the copyright owners of the popular songs to which the kiddies are dancing. As the Arts Law Centre warns ominously: ‘if the entertainment company that owns the copyright decides that they’re going to crack down on this particular type of infringement, then as a parent you’re potentially at risk’.

This now apparently acceptable notion that even intimate moments of familial sharing are privatised in both senses — personal but also  privately ‘owned’ — so proud parents should now just purchase their cherished memories by buying the offical DVD, casts a grim chill over the valuable role family photography has played in social cohesion for a century — from Kodak moments to Facebook pages.

I agree more and more with the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission, made five years ago and never acted on by our government, that existing specific Fair Dealing copyright exemptions  should be expanded with Fair Use exemptions, including exemptions for ‘non-commercial private use’. Some may see the the calls for expanded ‘fair use’ exemptions as a stalking horse for online distribution platforms exploiting small content producers, but the positive function of personal cameras in social space has also to be taken into account.