News – Steve's Aussie blog

What am I reading today? 10 Aug 2017

Here are some of the stories that caught my attention in the past 2-3 weeks or so: Intellectual property US: THE SLANTS trademark application officially approved - and the SCOTUS ruling US: Apple owes WARF $506 million for intellectual property it used Canada: Haliburton officials upset after man trademarks name of county Copyright Olive Cotton [...]

Australia’s “Amazon.com” tax

The Australian Treasurer recently announced that Australian State and Territory treasurers have agreed the GST should apply to cover online transactions where overseas suppliers sell goods under AU$1,000 to Australian consumers. Call it the “Amazon.com tax”? This mirrors the recent proposal to apply GST to supplies of digital products and services from overseas providers to [...]

Australia’s “Netflix” tax

Recently the Australian treasurer Joe Hockey announced that the Australian Government is considering extending the Goods and Services Tax to also cover intangible services such as internet streaming (eg Netflix), music downloads (eg iTunes) and e-books (eg Kobo and Amazon) that are sold into Australia. This could make buying online services 10% more expensive. Generally, [...]

G’day, eh? We are Aussies – January 26, 2015

It’s official, today we are Aussies! This morning Anna and I joined 620 new citizens to take the Australian citizenship pledge at Brisbane City Hall. Play the slide show Do we now speak with perfect Aussie twang, enjoy the taste of Vegemite or magically understand the rules of cricket? Uh, no – and especially not [...]

iiNet wins in copyright appeal case (AFACT v iiNet) – April 22, 2012

On 20 April 2012 the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the “iiTrial” between Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (a group of 34 movie studios and TV production companies) and Australian Internet service provider iiNet. The main question on appeal to the High Court was whether iiNet “authorised” its users’ copyright infringment [...]

Queensland floods – January 17, 2011

Thank you to all our family and friends who have called or asked how we are going amongst all the flooding in Queensland. A lot has happened in the past 7 days, so let me walk you through some of it. Background A series of floods hit eastern Australia in December 2010 and January 2011. [...]