There has recently been considerable discussion of the law concerning parallel importing of copyright materials. Yet the legality of parallel importing of trade marked products has still to be decided at an appellate level in Australia despite a number of Australian single judge decisions2 on the issue.

The term ‘parallel importing’ can be applied to a number of different activities. However, it usually involves the application in an overseas country of an Australian trade mark (Australian in the sense of being physically identical to the Australian mark) to products manufactured overseas. The application of the mark and the subsequent sale of the product in the overseas country is undoubtedly lawful but some of the marked products are then imported into Australia without the express consent3 of the Australian registered proprietor. This importation in competition with the Australian registered proprietor is parallel importing.

The legislative prohibitions on the parallel importation of copyright material should not survive the new technological developments in the transmission of that material. Australian copyright law should come to grips with that reality and remove the existing prohibitions. Yet the adoption of current proposals for the amendment of copyright law may lead to a situation in which copyright owners could effectively prevent parallel importing. This could be done by copyright owners even if the existing statutory provisions specifically aimed at preventing parallel importing were repealed.

This article looks at the justifications for prohibiting parallel importing and the strength of those justifications in the light of new or developing means of distributing copyright material. Those justifications have been seriouslr questioned in recent years by a series of reports of the Prices Surveillance Authority (PSA) which has criticised the continuing prohibition of parallel importing. The criticisms in these reports have not made any detailed reference to the effects that changes in technology will have on the means of distributing copyright material. Those criticisms, combined with the impact of new technology, tip the balance of the debate concerning parallel importing in favour of permitting parallel importing.

The industrialisation of Western food systems has reduced the regular consumption of lacto-fermented vegetables (LFV). Consuming LFV may exert health benefits through the alteration of the gut microbiome, but the mechanisms involved remain unclear. To start understanding the possible benefits of LFV, we compared faecal microbial diversity and composition, as well as dietary habits between individuals who regularly consume LFV (n = 23) and those who do not (n = 24). We utilised microbial DNA amplicon sequencing (16S rRNA and ITS2) and untargeted metabolomics (LC–MS) to analyse stool samples. Study participants also provided three consecutive days of dietary data. Results show minor effects on microbiome composition; with the enrichment of a few microorganisms potentially associated with vegetable ferments, such as Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa (P < 0.05), in LFV consumers. However, LFV consumption had greater effects on the faecal metabolome, with higher abundances of butyrate, acetate, and valerate (P < 0.05) and significantly greater metabolome diversity (P < 0.001). Overall, the observations of minor changes in the faecal microbiome and greater effects on the faecal metabolome from LFV consumption warrant further investigations on the health significance of LFV as regular components of the daily diet in humans.