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Australia To Adopt U.S.-Style Copyright Laws
An anonymous reader submits "Australia has just announced that it has finalized a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Included in the treaty is an agreement for Australia to implement American-style DMCA copyright laws, extensions to the term of copyright, and an agreement to move towards American-style patent and trademark laws (and we all know how well those work, don't we.) I suppose this is the misery-loves-company school of treaty negotiation."
This may be 'finalised' but it has got to get through both houses of parliament, and in the run up to a close election, with any luck the Senate (the upper house) will eviscerate the "DMCA by stealth" approach. At least they didn't get to shaft the Australian pharmaceutical scheme, which the US pharmas desperately wanted to do, as it is very cheap and fair.
A link to the Australian Broadcasting Council news story on the same item.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
Australia doesn't actually have freedoms for citizens as defined in it's constitution. Many australians will quote their "right to " but more often than not they're quoting the US constitution out of blind media coverage.
The gun lobby's insistence on our constitutional right to bear arms is the most amusing. Most of them know we have no such 'constitutional right' in Australia, but they'll still quote it because it sounds good to themselves.
My question is: How will this affect Project Gutenberg Australia?
I don't imagine they will be able to recall public domain items back into copyright, but does this mean an end to the release of additional public domain works for the next 40 years (when current items released under the 50 year term reach the US level of 90 years)?
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
Every time the US sneezes they pass their germs on to the rest of the world. Not that the US doesn't have its moments in the sun, but in Canada we see this happening far too often - US passes Law X so we must do the same.
The root cause is twofold: US pressure either directly or through unelected world organisations, and the knee jerk reaction of our own politicians.
The US which I personally view as one of the least democratic democracys, is effectively sabotaging democracy in the rest of the world, when it uses its influence to cause laws to be passed in other countries. This is a dangerous game in the long term. Undue influence on the policy in other democratic countries erodes democracy worldwide, and whatever George Bush may think, makes the world a little less safe in the longer term.
I sometimes wish I could boycott politicians like I do the RIAA :)
No, no, that's the UK.
Speaking as an Australian I can say that Australia is more accurately America's doormat.
Take for example this trade agreement. Australia could hardly get anything on agriculture, one of its biggest export areas and one where America's trade barriers really hurt. And yet we are still planning to sign it as a good deal. Personally I'm trying to work out how exactly this trade deal is going to help us at all. The farmers hate it and claim it sells out the farming industry (actually it's more like the status quo hasn't really changed ie. the deal gives almost zero benefits to farmers). The unions hate it and claims it sells out the manufacturing industry. The actors and TV producers hate it and claims it sells out the Australia movie and TV industry. The doctors are just relieved because they thought it could have been much worse (they thought PBS would be dismantled or crippled - it's still not clear whether it will be or not so the doctors are still worried). There are some vague rumblings of support from manufacturers but it seems more like some will benefit and some will be hit badly so it's a toss up whether manufacturing as a whole will benefit. Trust me, we're a doormat.
I mean geez, Howard, if you're going to send troops to Iraq to support an unpopular war, couldn't you at least get some financial benefit from it? And I thought he was a smart political operative. I guess his love of Bush (trust me even conservative Murdoch-owned newspapers here put in cartoons showing Howard worshipping Bush in bed) over-road his political smarts.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is likely to take a dim view on all of this.
They opposed the prosecution of the Sony mod-chipper - not for piracy reasons, but for competition reasons. Playstation games are cheaper in the US, and have more range in Japan.
They oppose region coding of DVDs - and as a result almost all Australian DVD players, even from the big companies, are region free out of the box. Same reasons, bigger range, more choice.
No matter what the U.S. wants, businesses in there have no force of law here - specifically the RIAA and friends.
I read with some concern that the Free Trade Agreement with the US will involve harmonising our intellectual property laws with the US, in particular with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This would be a disaster for innovation in Australia.
I refer you to the following paper, entitled "Unintended Consequences: Five Years under the DMCA" by the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/unintended_consequences .php
This paper describes the harm that has been done in the US to free speech, scientific research, and fair use since the DMCA's introduction. Introducing a similar law here would be devastating.
My own company, Southern Storm Software, Pty Ltd, would be directly affected by such as change. At present, Australian law protects those who reverse engineer a competitor's product for the purpose of interoperation. DMCA-style laws would make me a felon solely for trying to compete fairly in my chosen market.
I urge you to please reconsider, so that Australia remains competitive in the Information Technology industry, and does not become a victim of the large Copyright interests in the US who are not interested in true and open competition.
Name and address added.
http://www.southern-storm.com.au/
When this was first mentioned, I spent some time reading up on the topic: I might as well share some links here.
The only organisation that I could find actively lobbying against the dilution of Public Domain rights in Australia was Australian Library and Information Association, a professional organisation for librarians. They are following this issue, and may appreciate your input and support; their online journal also contains an insightful article by an Australian National University professor of law on copyrights and public domain.
As other have pointed out, the retrospective extension of copyrights from Life+50 to Life+70, which even those advocating a longer copyright term admitted had no justification, is of particular concern to Project Gutenberg of Australia (site seems to be down at present--anyone know why?), which had published a number of until now Public Domain works on their site (for instance, the works of George Orwell). There's already some discussion of this on Distributed Proofreaders (registration may be required)--if you're a DP'er, you might like to contribute, and if you're not a DP'er, you should be.
HTH