STEVE CANNANE, PRESENTER: The Green Senator Scott Ludlam has been a vocal critic of the legislation and will be pushing for a series of amendments. I spoke to him a short time ago.

Scott Ludlam, thanks for talking to us.

SCOTT LUDLAM, GREENS SENATOR: Good evening.

STEVE CANNANE: What is your problem with this bill?

SCOTT LUDLAM: My problem with it is that it seems to be attacking the issue from the wrong end and what it will effectively leave Australia with is a really important building block for an Internet filter, and I think it's the wrong way to attack the problem.

STEVE CANNANE: OK but we just saw in our story independent film-makers like those who produced Wyrmwood they're in favour of the bill. Are you siding with the free loaders over the artists on this one?

SCOTT LUDLAM: No, I come from an arts background; I want artists to get paid. But a really important element of the story that you just put to air was that there was a two-month window between the cinematic release and people who couldn't get to the cinema being able to get hold of it. That is a very 20th century way of doing distribution and that model is basically being eroded by the Internet.

STEVE CANNANE: So are you suggesting that these corporations have brought privacy on - brought piracy on themselves?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Well, effectively, if you give people a, you know a safe, convenient, reasonably cheap and rapid ability to access content, piracy collapses. There always will be a few free loaders but this bill is using a hammer to crack a nut. If you give people convenient ways of accessing content, very, very few people will be bothered to pirate stuff.

STEVE CANNANE: Do you really think that's the case? I mean we have a generation of digital natives many of whom don't pay for anything online. Even if the studios, the big movie studios did reduce their prices, did change their business model, what's to say that those people would pay for that product?

SCOTT LUDLAM: I actually think that really unfairly characterises an entire generation. I mean people yeah - people are used to the Internet being a delivery platform that can provide free stuff, but piracy collapses in markets where people can get hold of content and that's been replicated all over the world - Australia is being treated as this isolated little bubble where the rights holders think they might be able to maintain a 20th century distribution bottle neck that no longer exists and they've persuaded the Government, because that's the only voices that the Governments listening to.

STEVE CANNANE: OK so as a legislator with a keen interest in copyright law what do you think the solution is? How do you protect the copyright of artists like the film-makers we just heard from? How do we stop them from being ripped off and allow them to make a living out of their art?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Well the film-makers in this instance are the meat in the sandwich. Because it looked to me, as though nobody- unless you could get to the cinema where they happen to have released their film nobody was able to get hold of the property and that's why it ended up in the top 10 of Pirate Bay or wherever it was. If people are able to get hold of content they won't hack it. And that as I say, that experience has been replicated around the world. Australia will be no different.

STEVE CANNANE: OK so what do legislate do? I mean we're talking about business models here, corporations make those decisions?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Yeah corporations do and you've got these 20th century content monopolies that are desperately trying to hold on to a distribution bottle neck that basically we don't need any more. It no longer exists. It's a pre-Internet business model. If you make content available to people, you won't need an Internet filter.

What we have got is this, in my view, quite dangerous mechanism being brought forward where the hell is the rest of the copyright agenda?

The Australian Law Reform Commission looked at not this issue, but much broader issues around copyright reform in Australia years ago, there's still been no response. So as a legislator, what I would like to see is can we please have the evidence on the table rather than pressing ahead with an Internet filter.

STEVE CANNANE: Will the bill work will it restrict Internet piracy?

SCOTT LUDLAM: I think you probably would see in the short-term as they start wiping out particular sites that they think are of concern, and then people will work out how to circumvent it, so using VPNs, for example.

If what the Government is intending to do is - they can't pull these sites down, obviously, they can make them very difficult to view from within Australia, so people will use services that make your traffic appear that it's not coming from Australia. It's relatively easy to circumvent.

STEVE CANNANE: According to Choice magazine they say that over 680,000 Australians are already using VPNs. Do you think that will grow as a result of this bill?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Well, it might grow. And obviously VPNs have a large number of legitimate uses and one of the things that I'm quite worried about and as are many others, is that this bill arguably criminalises use of VPNs. So one of the amendments that we'll be bringing next week if the Government brings debate forward will be to make it absolutely crystal clear, that it we are not criminalising uses of VPNs.

STEVE CANNANE: OK is that really the case? Because Malcolm Turnbull has said the legislation is not intended to block virtual private networks, these VPNs?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Well our advice basically is when you're using language as broad as facilitating copyright infringement, that's way too broad. I will take the Government's view on good faith. If they agree to our amendment and narrow the language in the bill, then it will be shown that they mean it.

STEVE CANNANE: Let's talk more about that. This legislation is meant to block websites that infringe copyright, but also facilitate infringement. What does facilitate mean?

SCOTT LUDLAM: You tell me, Steve. Facilitate - like the Internet facilitates infringements. Web browsers, mobile phones facilitate infringement. That's language is dangerously broad. That's - effectively that goes to the nature of the amendments that we'll be bringing.

Our first call on the Government to be honest and I hope the Labor Party will support this, because they said very similar things in the House of Representatives this week, is the bill should be delayed. It should not proceed until the Australian Government's come forward with its responses to two key inquiries into this issue, both of them which were conducted well over a year ago.

STEVE CANNANE: Alright. You say dangerous, dangerous in what way?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Well you can't- I think it's very dangerous to set up a site blocking mechanism that could potentially criminalise such a wide variety of platforms and sites. That is very, very problematic. You know we fought an Internet filter to a standstill years ago and it's quite distressing to see it returning in this form.

STEVE CANNANE: So are the Greens in a sense here arguing for trade liberalisation on movies and music?

SCOTT LUDLAM: Well, industry seems to be all about deregulation until its interests are suddenly caught in the cross hairs. What we are seeing is a 20th century business model that has been very rapidly eroding. They could have seen it coming and in other countries they have. They're trying to protect that monopoly by getting the Government to you know, to legislate and to re-regulate a sector that doesn't really need it. Just make the content available and people will stop ripping it off.

STEVE CANNANE: OK is this deregulation, though, or is this endorsing theft? Because this is what they are saying, is thieving from artists and from industry.

SCOTT LUDLAM: I don't endorse theft. I come from an arts background. I want to see artists; particularly Australian artists get paid for their work. But if you listen to the experts, you look at experience around the world, site blocking regimes, they are not going to be a magic bullet for copyright infringement and they can immediately be broadened and their scope can be broadened. Every time there is some other moral panic somebody's going to come forward and say we should use your site blocking regime to block this and that and the other.

That's the slippery slope that we are on now.

STEVE CANNANE: Scott Ludlam, we'll have to leave it there thanks very much for joining us.

SCOTT LUDLAM: Thank you.