"Digital publishing is in a parlous state in Australia because of overregulation and DRM is a large part of it," he said. "Australian publishing is destined to languish until these risks of publication are dramatically reduced - not dramatically increased."

Referring to the Kazaa file-sharing software case, Scott says the resounding success of the litigants - with an enormous legal bill for all those involved - appears to have done nothing at all to limit Internet downloads.

"There is no evidence that these provisions do anything other than increase risks for legitimate businesses and waste time and money on litigation," he said. "There has been a deluge of copyright litigation over the past decade, but the litigants keep asking for more ways to sue people, this time by way of DRM."

In contrast to what might be an expected stance of a practicing lawyer, Scott said: "The lawyers must be laughing their way to the bank!"

"The OSIA [Open Source Industry Australia] wants strong and sensible copyright laws, not laws which encourage even more wasteful and quixotic litigation," he said.