SemiArticulate

Random Musings
January 23rd, 2011

Australian National Classification Scheme Review

The Classification board is taking comments on the Terms of Reference for the upcoming Classification Review.

You can read about it here: Classification website. You can also submit your comments on line.

My submission:

With regard to the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the review of the classification in Australia, I would like to make the following comments:

The ToR seems to be based on the old-media view of the world – the use of the terms “industry” and “content and distribution industry”. Whilst a review of “industry” is warrented it is apparant from the experience of the internet that an increasing amount of content is user generated (think blogs, youtube etc). Distribution becoming end user to end user, rater than content producer to distributer to end user. The ToR does not take this into account.

The ToR does not not specify a review on whether classification is warrented (or appropriate) at all in the 21st century, or is appropriate for citizen to citizen communtication (think user generated content above).

The ToR does make reference to classification schemes in other juristictions, but does not specify if Australia should regognise classifications from country-of-origin (with the view to reduce classification costs, prevent doubling-up).

regards,
Lucas James