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Australia-U.S. Trade Agreement Contains DMCA-like Provisions
Posted by
michael
on Sat Mar 06, 2004 08:05 AM
from the exporting-evil dept.
from the exporting-evil dept.
femto writes "The text of the US-Australian Preferential Trade Agreement has been released. It has significant implications for Free Software and the Public Domain within Australia. Implications include extension of copyright terms (death to the Public Domain & Gutenberg Australia), software patents (death to Free Software) and the DMCA (death to fair use). It is not yet law. The Europeans have shown that software patents are not a done deal. Now is the time to write letters to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Join the EFA. Contact your local library. Sign up to the mailing list to organise opposition. Just make a noise during this year's federal election."
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Now is the Winter of their discontent :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy has always been touted as the 'Will of the people'. It isn't, of course (at least not in modern times) because of the scale over which it operates. It used to work when communities were small, and it would work better if voting (though it ought to include a 'None of the above' were compulsory.
What this meant was that the illusion of democracy was maintained, while those in power could essentially do as they wished, until it was necessary to promise the earth again at election time. Now, though, with free availability of information, that power is lessening. Ordinary people such as you or I really can organise large-scale demonstrations without being an Organisation (and hence subject to pressure) ourselves. This is good.
The European patents debacle was a case in point - the Raconteur was lobbied by (gasp) individuals! These people wanted to talk to their representative and make their point. Such radical behaviour was completely unexpected, and caused the Speaker in the final debate to apologise to her for that indignity. Sad, isn't it. Let's hope they get used to it soon
(BTW: (1) apologies to Will, (2) None of this is aimed at any government in particular. The phrase "Democracy is the least-worst form of government we've found to date" applies across the board, IMHO)...
Simon
Re:Now is the Winter of their discontent :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Money == Legislation (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Australia never had "Fair Use" (Score:5, Informative)
To make any part of a copy of a copyright, australians ALWAYS needed explicit permission from the copyright holder to do so. Things were never any different.
This would be like an article related to the US with a writeup that "OMG this new law means we now no longer can take our children out the back and shoot them". You never could... legally.
Parent
Re:Australia never had "Fair Use" (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
You're both sort-of correct..., (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, if the FTA gets up, as an Aussie we should start campaigning for US-style fair use provisions, all in the name of "harmonizing with the largest economy in the world", of course.
Parent
Re:Compulsory Voting (Score:5, Insightful)
As to your fears of compolsory voting inducing politics to reach the "lowest common demoninator", I'd have to say that the US is far closer to that than Australia. We don't have the cruel and bitter personal attacks in mass-media political advertising, mudslinging and insinuation that seem characterise US politics. We certainly wouldn't get hung up about any political candidate's "war record" or lack thereof. (OTOH our capacity for cheap political stunts is up there with the best...)
Perhaps you should consider the converse: that the requirement of people to remain engaged with the democratic process causes them to care a little more about the outcome. It is not an option to merely opt-out and cynically consider politics a distant game, over which citizens can have no effect.
Parent
Re:Compulsory Voting (Score:5, Informative)
I honestly believe that this is a good thing. I think that Australians in general have a better understanding not only of international politics, but also of what's happening internally, too. They don't necessarily know names, but they do know fairly well the various stances on policy (and I don't just mean: "Oh, the Labor Party? They're for workers rights").
I think that at some level, this increased knowledge is influenced by our requirement to vote. Yes, a lot of people submit blank ballots and donkey votes, but this is more a show of lack of faith than not turning up to vote ever could be. A lot of people figure that if they have to vote, they may as well do it properly.
That can't be a bad thing, I don't think.
Parent
So what? Its already been signed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I say this with bile in my throat, but I for one, do NOT welcome Australias new DMCA wielding overloads.
laws must be passed in parliament (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyright is a law (otherwise known as an act of parliament). It cannot be altered unless a bill passes both houses of parliament.
The Australian Government has a web site about The Australian Legal System [law.gov.au] that explains all this.
Parent
Re:laws must be passed in parliament (Score:3, Insightful)
The US would be pretty pissed off if they and Australia sign a contract, which AU later says - nope, sorry - it didnt pass through parliment. We wont accept section x.xx
Re:laws must be passed in parliament (Score:4, Informative)
Newsflash: That's exactly how it works. People from both governments get together. Work out a lot of details. When the proposition is cool with both parties, THEN it must go through congress on BOTH countries. Otherwise, the prez would be able to sign the country in whatever he feels like, without any oversight.
At least, that's how the FTA with Chile worked like.
Parent
Re:So what? Its already been signed. (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheer up, everything is not lost yet.
It actually has to go through parliment first (Score:5, Informative)
Therefore, contact your representatives and senators (particularly those senators who hold the ballance of power and are able to influence the passage or blocking of this) and let them know that the FTA is bad (not just for the IP laws but for the way it does absoultly nothing worthwile for our farmers and generally gives far more to America (and especially large american companies) than it does to Australia)
Unlike America where the passage of the FTA is a done deal (as long as the unmarked bundles of bills in the unmarked black briefcases get into the hands of the polititions that they are supposed to be bribes to anyway), its by no means certain that the FTA will pass in australia.
One thing to remember is that, unlike many bills that have passed through the senate after the government did deals with the minor parties and aggreed to some amendments, the FTA cant be ammended and has to be passed as-is.
Parent
Re:So what? Its already been signed. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, you can help me by taking your frustrations and channeling them into supporting me run for election, so if successful I CAN do something about it directly.
In fact, if you are so inclined, why not run yourself, either as an independent or as part of my new party?
Interested? See my sig for my party website and jump into our forums there to voice your thoughts.
Re:So what? Its already been signed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what? Its already been signed. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Greens will want the bills killed simply on principle;
The Democrats will probably insist on fine tuning the wording until it looks nothing like the FTA anymore, or the election comes and they lose half their senators;
The independants will probably decide they need some time (read: a few years) to be sure everything meets their approval;
And the ALP will probably reckon that they can get more by bagging the agreement as a sell-out than they can by passing it in "the interest of Australian jobs".
Of course, after the election all bets are off, and if the PM calls a double dissulution he could simply bypass the senate in a joint sitting, rather than brow beating it into signing.
However that's a long way down the track, and depends very much on winner.
Parent
Re:So what? Its already been signed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Signature means nothing. It has to be PASSED into law by the Parliament / Senate (or whatever in the US). The Labor Party needs to be made aware what the DMCA implies and the Greens and the Democrats (if they can hold a rational thought for more than 30 seconds these days) ... that will give a Senate majority to reject it. The parties are merely talking about the value in monetary terms at the moment (even there it doesn't look too good) and need to consider deeper issues. Did I say that ? Politicians considering deeper issues ? I must be nuts.
Parent
Capitalism getting way out of line (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe is based on capitalism, sure, but culturally is different and hopefully capitalism will not reach the extremes we see in the USA.
It's like big corporations and economical lobbies (a small percentage of the population, surely) can dictate the law to a degree which I find scary.
These kind of agreements are not made to protect the wide public interest but to protect big corporation's sources of income. This is done in ways that will, in the long run, prevent progress and sharing of ideas... Unpopular but I had to say it!
Re:Capitalism getting way out of line (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Capitalism getting way out of line (Score:5, Informative)
This is all about the Australian Government selling out on Australia.
Parent
Reclaiming capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
Unpopular? Here? ROTFL.
Parent
No Capitalism, it's corporate imperialism (Score:5, Insightful)
The stuff they're passing is pure protectism, locking out competitors using Patents, Copyrights and DMCA extended trade secrets.
I'm not opposed to companies protecting their ideas by patents, but I do object when it's common knowlegde they patent!
I'm not opposed to protecting software with copyright and trade secret, but I object when its protected by copyright, trade secret, DMCA AND patents, all at the same time, even though patents and trade secrets are mutually exclusive!
I'm not opposed to record companies copyrighting their music, but FOR F*** SAKE, my kids will be dead by the time Britneys songs go out of copyright. Victorian lute music would still be under copyright if these bozos were in power in 1900.
You have to keep batting this drivel back.
Parent
Re:Capitalism getting way out of line (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:It has nothing to do with capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
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Quite absurd... (Score:3, Insightful)
--"The problem with common sense, is that it's not that common."
Revolution? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Revolution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Change is necessary. And I hope we can make that happen
Re:Revolution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because big businesses don't want to have to do that pesky dealing with the police, and want to get the search warrants themselves and have them carried them out by their private agents.
Because big businesses want to have the right to seize all equipment of an ISP (without informing him beforehand) if they suspect that some customers of his have illegally downloaded copyrighted material, and keep that equipment for up to 31 days without detailing what their complaints actually are.
Because big businesses want to have the right freeze all bank accounts and assets of suspected infringers, even before said alleged infringers have been heard by a court.
The first is obviously about software patents, the other points come more or less literally from the new IPR-enforcement directive that's currently being lead through the European Parliament by MEP Janelly Fourtou... who happens to be the wife of the CEO of Vivendi-Universal.
The directive would apply to *any* kind of IP, going from trade secrets over patents to copyright, and at any scale. So someone who illegally downloads an MP3 for personal use, someone who publishes a program that uses a patented algorithm and an organised crime organisations that massively counterfeits mark clothing, music etc... would all get the same treatment.
Note that I'm not claiming that someone who illegally downloads an MP3 for personal use does not have to be punished. But that is already illegal, and it's beyond all reasonable proportions that such an action can result in the freezing of all his assets and the seizure of his ISP's equipment. And on top of that, it gives the SCO's of this world the means to abuse straight from their wildest dreams.
Parent
Boilerplate FTA (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the carrot and stick. The current
I'm sure the New Zealanders (who were excluded from a US/NZ FTA because they wouldn't join in with Iraq and won't allow nuclear warships in port) are really upset that they missed out on this one.
Re:Boilerplate FTA (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Boilerplate FTA (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, history has shown that the New Zealanders have done fine without the blessing of the United States. Thank God they've had the guts to stand up for themselves, unlike the current Australian Government.
It's interesting because (Score:5, Informative)
One interesting point is that in Aus, since the copyright laws are (as yet, still) different, Project Gutenberg of Australia can host certain texts, including some Australian texts which would be public domain, but if this agreement goes ahead, some of these texts [gutenberg.net.au] would be illegal to distribute...
Re:It's interesting because (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, not really. Look at it this way: if there was no copyright protection at all, can you see why that would make it harder for artists etc. to make a living selling their work?
If you agree that no copyright at all would make it harder for artists to make a living being artists, would you also say that some may reasonably consider that to be a loss for the general public?
So, now give a copyright term of
DMCA-like Provisions? (Score:4, Interesting)
I fail to see how DMCA-like provisions under the FTA will make current law even worse then it already is.
Not to mention most of the 'free' part of the deal doesn't come into the equation for another 18 years.
Great job, Mark Vaile.
It's not too late (Score:4, Informative)
Write letters to your MP. Search at the AEC (http://www.aec.gov.au/esearch/) to find the name of yourt local MP. Let them know what you think. While posting to
Generally make noise. Your local media may be aligned to Fairfax, but they are also slaves to news. MAKE NEWS! Packer has a really bad habit of picking PM's, MAKE NEWS.
Remember, NZ rejected the war on iraq and the US droped them from trade talks. If you were at any of the anti-war rallies and were ignored - THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE IGNORED FOR! Don't let them get away with it!
Re:It's not too late (Score:4, Interesting)
See my sig for my nascent political party here in Oz.
I can tell you that we as a party will NOT encourage paper based petitions, but rather we will encourage emails and postings to our forums where the party hierarchy will always be active and responding to posts.
Snail mail to MPs is a waste of resources IMHO. I'm more than capable of reading emails and postings in forums, so why shouldn't other politicians be? (rhetorical question!!)
Anyway, drop into our forums and support us so we CAN get into parliament and do something to stop these types of draconian laws.
Parent
Re:NZ was pro-Saddam (Score:4, Insightful)
Bollocks. I opposed the war, and still oppose the war, but that doesn't mean I'm on Saddam Hussein's side. I'm as happy as the next guy to see him in custody.
There were plenty of other ways to have his regime dismantled, but I guess you're not capable of thinking outside the square to work out how.
Parent
And US citizens... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And US citizens... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the content providers here (film/TV) are already arguing against the FTA because it goes towards dismantling the Australian content rules (so much Australian made content must be shown on TV). Local artists don't seem to be yelling for this sort of stuff.
Actually the local content rules are responsible for things like Kylie Minogue, Russel Crowe and The Wiggles - so maybe complete domination of the Australian airwaves by reruns of whatever the Waynes brothers are doing wouldn't have been such a bad thing.
Parent
Join our party and help us fight this (Score:5, Interesting)
Currently we have 11 members. This is pretty slow going. If you're Australian, take a moment to visit our site (see sig for link). Slashdot our PO Box with membership forms if you think we are worthy!!
The only real way to fight this sort of law is to actually get yourself into the political system by running for and winning in the election. So that's what I intend to do. If you want to help, visit our site and drop into the forums there, or simply read what we are about and see if our ideals match yours. We are based primarily on the internet and have set ourselves up as an open source tech savvy party, meaning that not only do we use open source, but we are making all our documentation, reports and discussions open as well. This is really the only way to make politics accountable again.
You may also want to consider running for parliament yourself (either through us or by starting your own party - you can even use our Constitution etc as a basis!).
Anyway, visit us and if interested tell your friends. This is the only way in today's society of getting this sort of law repealed.
We have an active policy forum on our website (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a quote that goes something like: "All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing." If you play into the idea that you will never change anything, then you never will.
Our part
Re:It will only help Quizo's opponents. (Score:5, Informative)
Little efforts such as these will only help those that Quizo69 are opposed to politically, as it will divide/split the vote and power of the side Quizo is on.
It is like the the U.S. Ralph Nader might as well have a "Bush/Cheney 2004" t-shirt, because that is what his campaign helps.
That's not true. In Australia, we have a preferential voting system [eca.gov.au], where voters rank candidates in order of preference. The lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated and their votes passed on to people's second preferences until one candidate has a clear majority.
Parent
Re:It will only help Quizo's opponents. (Score:3, Interesting)
No, it won't.
Australia has a preferential voting system, where you list the candidates you wish to vote for in order from 1 to N, where N is the number of candidates on the ballot paper.
If no candidate gets 50% or more of the vote, then counting goes to prefences, where the second preference of the candidate with the lowest number of votes get distributed to each other candidate, and so on, until someone gets more than 50%.
So voting for minor parties in Australia does not waste your vote.
Don't waste your time on the House (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong side of the Pacific (Score:4, Informative)
Xix.
Parent
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
(a) requires both parties to sign up to international agreements (as administered at WIPO, including the original WIPO "Internet Treaties" that numerous countries that sign that stipulate that countries must provide for rights management protection and DMCA style provisions);
(b) then goes through and restates the obligations from those treaties, and a bit more detail about how to implement those specific obligations so that both the US and AU have similar procedural systems in terms of law enforcement, administration, judicial review, etc;
The international treaties are typically substantive only (e.g. berne, paris, madrid, etc): they harmonise minimum requirements for parties to the treaty and do not specify the way in which parties can implement those obligations. For example the WTO TRIPS agreement is signed by some 150+ countries and it sets _minimum_ level of IP protection that these countries should implement, but it leaves a _very_ wide gap about how each of those countries go about implementing.
What this agreement seems to be doing is making sure that (a) the US and AU both adhere to the relevant treaties; (b) they then implement the treaties in compatible ways.
This really doesn't have that much of a bearing on DMCA style provisions, since many countries are already signing up to the original treaties in the first place. The fact is that without this US and AU agreement, both US and AU would sign up to the treaties anyway.
I suggest that anyone protesting about this first understand the total picture, otherwise the protests are going to be discarded as they'll be considered to have come from a bunch of people that don't really understand nor know what they are talking about. That's a fact of life.
Blow Against Telco's vs RIAA/MPAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like a veiled threat to those who seek to keep their customers anonymous against the rulings from the courts of the US allowing ISP's to keep their customers anonymous.
In fact all of section 29 seems to hint at giving copyright holders the ability to not only Sue the originating ISP but any other ISP/Telco/CLEC/RBOC etc for even passing off the traffic to their peers. IANAL but that seems to be one of the worst parts of this agreement.
project gutenberg.au protest letter (Score:5, Informative)
A volunteer has prepared a letter which could be sent to the Prime Minister or to your local federal member of parliament. If you would like
to use it, please save it to your PC (from the FILE Menu choose SAVE AS), print it out, sign it and send it to the parliamentarian of your choise at
Parliament House
Canberra.
* * * * *
Dear Parliamentarian,
With much concern I learned about the proposed extension of copyright to life+70 years in Australia under the misguided banner of harmonisation of copyright terms with the US and the EU.
The following arguments show why the change of the copyright laws are bad;
1.)
No scientific, independent, economic study has shown any public benefit from such a sweeping copyright extension. On the contrary, this extension causes considerable public harm.
The harm is caused by the fact that it extends the period that the public will be required to pay fees for the use of works. It reduces the timeframe in which potentially fragile media can be copied with a massive twenty years: resulting in a tremendous threat to our cultural heritage.
This legislation is only beneficial to the very small group of 'classic' works that are still exploited, a century after publication. -- it
therefore very much appears to be legislation inspired by private interests and moneyed lobbying. As an example of this, the Allens Consulting group published a supposedly independent, but highly biased report under the title: Copyright Term Extension: Australian Benefits and Costs ( see http://www.allenconsult.com.au/resources/MPA_Draft _final.pdf).
This report was commissioned by a clear stakeholder, the Motion Pictures Association.
Some very important notes to this report by the well known U.S. copyright lawyer Lawrence Lessig are available online on his web site.
(http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001522
2.)
In article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the access to cultural heritage is placed before the protection of individual author's rights, this indicates a clear priority of importance.
The proposed extension is in direct contradiction with this, and damages the careful balance between author's and the public's rights that the
UDHR requires.
3.)
ALL works published before 1923 are and will remain in the US's public domain!
Harmonisation between Australia's and the US's copyright laws would imply that Australia too places such works in the public domain, but, that cannot and will not happen (due to the australian 'death + 50 year' rule).
Will these (Australian works) be in the Public domain in US and not in Australia?
It is therefore clear that the proposed extension of our copyright laws does NOT lead to harmonisation.
4.)
The largest part of the world population lives in countries that maintain a life+50 regime for copyright, including all Australian neighbours.
A lot of arguments can be made to remain harmonised with these countries, many of which have not shown any intention to extend their copyright period.
5.)
It is not a requirement for the free-trade status with the US to be linked with the life+70 copyright protection. Canada already has free-trade relations with the US without being required to adjust its copyright term from life+50 to life+70, and, has no plans to do so
either.
6.)
The benefits of this extension seems to go to a small group of people who, in all likelihood, are only remotely related to the original authors
who have been dead over 50 years. Only in some exceptional cases will children of authors benefit from this extension, in some cases
grandchildren, but in most cases corporations who often have no emotional connection with the original author.
7.)
The long time span after publication of a work and the life span of the author increased with 5
Australia, don't become America! (Score:5, Insightful)