It’s not exactly the “Team Australia” moment Scott Morrison has been calling for: his adviser, Nick Louw, has admitted to distributing a pirated copy of Malcolm Turnbull’s unpublished book, A Bigger Picture, over the weekend.
Leaks against a former enemy is old-school politics at its finest, but it’s not really helpful in the middle of a crisis. With legal action threatened, and the Australian Federal Police called upon to investigate further, the hunt for more leakers will no doubt continue.
So how did someone in Scott Morrison’s office get a hold of the book, and who did he send it to?
Turnbull’s book was due to be published today, with exclusive write-ups being promised to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age over the weekend. But The Australian national affairs editor, Simon Benson, got his hands on a copy last week, scooping the Nine papers. Now Barnaby Joyce says he won’t bother buying a copy because there are so many floating around.
Digital book “hacked”
Like a lot of publishers, Hardie Grant turns many of its books into ebooks. It believes a copy of the ebook was “hacked” either from its own systems or its ebook supplier, and then made available online.
“From that, the Liberal party team decided it was fun to distribute to as many people as they could,” Sandy Grant, CEO of Hardie Grant, told Inq.
Grant said he was looking into whether it was available on a website like Library Genesis, which boasts pirated versions of academic texts for free, often in breach of copyright.
“Someones hacked in and got the ebook either from our system or their system and made it available on one of these illegal websites,” he said.
“Go for it”
It didn’t take long for the illegal copies to get back to Turnbull. On Saturday, Hardie Grant became aware that Nick Louw, an adviser to Scott Morrison, had distributed a copy of the book.
The publisher claims Louw sent the book to people via a WhatsApp chat along with the message: “I’ve sent this to a million people, go for it, ha ha”. But the publisher says it believes there were multiple people inside the Liberal party distributing pirated digital copies.
“They were gleefully sending it around and encouraging people to send it to others,” Grant said.
Some ministers and journalists received multiple copies of the book. “We know [Liberal MP] Tim Wilson got five copies,” Grant said.
Received and deleted
On Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne admitted she had received a pirated copy of the book from someone outside of the Prime Minister’s Office, but would not say from whom. “I’ve received and deleted,” she told the ABC’s Insiders.
Nic Pullen, lawyer for Hardie Grant and Turnbull, would not say who else it believed was responsible for distributing the book.
“We’re still looking into it in relation to who has been sending it,” Pullen told Inq. “But what was contained in it was a full file — the whole book.”
Cease and desist
Pullen, on behalf of Turnbull and Hardie Grant, wrote to Louw on Sunday instructing him that he was responsible for the “unauthorised distribution” of the book in digital form. Turnbull has told The Guardian Louw acknowledged he circulated a digital version of the book to 59 people.
Grant says the publisher wants police to investigate who else was responsible. He criticised the government for not taking a stand against copyright theft.
“When senior federal ministers say, ‘Oh I can’t tell you where I got it from’, why not? Don’t you abhor breach of copyright?” he said.
Imagine if it had been a HarperCollins publication (subsidiary of News Corp) – suddenly the Coalition would be most respectful of piracy laws.
It will be very interesting to see how this major blunder plays out. Scott Morrison stated publicly not too long ago that the law must be upheld. Now his staffer Nic Louw has admitted to having breached the Copyright Act 59 times. Apart from the damages he and his employer are liable for under the Act, it would seem that the criminal penalties for individuals are severe: financial penalty (for each offence?) up to $117,000 and a possible term of imprisonment of up to five years. It is reported that Malcolm Turnbull’s publisher has informed the Australian Federal Police of the offence.
Will the AFP (supported by the Attorney General of course) now do its duty and investigate and prosecute the admitted known perpetrator of a serious criminal offence and uphold the law that the Prime Minister has stated must be upheld, with all the force and vigilance that it used in investigating say, the ABC and Ms Smethurst, or Bernard Collaery and Witness K? Or will they shuffle around in their frequent politicised manner and say hypocritically, “Nothing to see here …”?
It would be a remarkable twist of fate if the same officers who investigated Angus Taylor were put onto this case.
They probably will be with the same instructions to find nothing.
Maybe not the same officers but the same ethos.
The AFP are the Praetorian Guard, their function is too protect the Emperor, not enforce law.
What amazes me about this is that Morrison has not stood him down for being a childish prankster or to have time with his family, or repeat grade 12 ethics… Or how to ‘share’ a naughty act without leaving fingerprints all over it – to say nothing of signing it. When will his ‘resignation’ be accepted.
I have no doubt that many Libs are delighted to see and share Turnbull’s sprays, but deary me, that could have waited until the book was launched. Well let’s see how much the government really supports the law and copyright.
Even if Morrison is gleeful himself, he better put on his big boy pants and fire Louw after, perhaps praying with him to ask forgiveness as well. There needs to be a lesson read to all the pollies and ‘advisors’ to prevent further outrages to sensible government.
Rumour has it that Sooty soiled his big boy pants to such an extent on that fateful trip to Macca’s that they couldn’t be salvaged .
This is so simple a matter to trace through the email system, never mind the metadata laws. Any line manager in the IT section could ascertain, in a couple of keystrokes, who sent what to whom.
End of investigation.
Start of copyright prosecution – which I think Talcum was once pretty up on.
Tends to highlight the fact that the Liberal Party is basically an employer group for preppy private school boys, almost always boys, with an average emotional age of about 15.
How freaking unprofessional do you have to be to do that?
I hope Malcolm goes after them if the cops don’t.
But the book itself, who cares, not even yesterday’s news.