Australia's Attorney-General, Phillip Ruddock, on the Australian government's recent decision to consider whether doing things like ripping a CD to your MP3 player for your own personal use ought to be legal in Australia: "There's a reasonable argument for putting forward the opinion that when someone has bought something in one format and has acquired the copyright for it in that particular format then there is a fair use for them to take it to another format. I think it's a strong argument."

Via Kim Weatherall, a bit of background on the proposal to give Australians fair use: "The media release is here. The submission is available here. Since rumour has it that AGs are not keen on any such move ..., it will be interesting to see whether this gets any response."