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."

Comments

Beginning of a frightening trend?

[digitalvengeance]

This brings up an interesting notion. At what point does financial globalization lead to the homogenization of national laws, even horrible ones? In the past, idiocy could be somewhat contained due to the fact that different countries have vastly different review procedures and generally different sensibilities about abstract concepts such as intellectual property. This article serves as a frightening example of how financial interests may lead to the exportation of horrible ideas.

One is also led to wonder what good ideas will be lost as testing of creative ways to deal wth modern problems could be in violation of treaties such as this one.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it, Australia is America's lap dog.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[thisissilly]

At what point does financial globalization lead to the homogenization of national laws, even horrible ones?

It's been happening for a while. The US had some perfectly reasonable copyright laws up until 1976, when we changed our laws so we could join the Berne convention. We changed our laws to "harmonize" with Europe. And then in 1995, Europe extended their laws from life+50 to life+70, and shortly thereafter [1996], the US extended its laws to match.

It's a crap trick that political and corporations play. Pass a law in one area, and then force other areas to pass similar laws to "harmonize". It's why other contries are getting their own versions of the DMCA

Do I even have to ask why instead of Australia extending their copyrights (they were/are a life+50 nation), the US doesn't scale back US laws to match Australia's?

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[GloomE]

If you lived here (in Australia) you'd mod that as "Informative", not "Troll".

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[oingoboingo]

Let's face it, Australia is America's lap dog.

Absolutely correct. That seems to be the overwhelming perception here in Australia. If that was an Australian moderator marking that comment as a troll, you should get away from your computer for a few days and actuallly get outside and start talking to some people. In this country we do not so much vote for an Australian Government to govern us, as vote for a regional outpost of the United States administration who we hope will interpret American interests and policies in our favour.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Peter Cooper]

At what point does financial globalization lead to the homogenization of national laws, even horrible ones?

It has already happened in many areas. Numerous treaties, including this one, have helped make patents cross-border. The EU is a giant cross-border experiment, and systems like NAFTA, NATO, OPEC, and the Arabian and Asian trade pacts, reinforce things even more.

The UK is already experiencing a small form of one world government in terms of the European Union. European Union laws often override the old British ones entirely, particularly in areas relating to human rights. It's not going to be long before something like UN law overrides all others, and if it's like the UK.. we won't like it, but we'll fall over and accept it anyway.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[mokeyboy]

Do I even have to ask why instead of Australia extending their copyrights (they were/are a life+50 nation), the US doesn't scale back US laws to match Australia's?

Rule one of globalisation (ie being dictated to by the US) - the country with the most enlightened position will take it up the arse.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[lambadomy]

I think this is accurate, but I believe it is due more to Americas social/military/financial dominance than just basic "financial globalization". I think if the US didn't happen to have such a seemingly strong barganing position with the rest of the world we wouldn't see this, at least not with more negotiation.

Of course, this assumes that other countries even believe that the US's laws are bad, but they just have to take them. As much as you or I might hate the DMCA or Patriot act or something, there are people who *do* like them, in every country, not just the US. I wouldn't put it past other governments to use "america made us do it" as a reason to pass maybe unpopular laws that the legislators actually want.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Goonie]

Because we're the world experts in free-market capitalism. We're the ones who made it work when everyone else failed. Our economy is by far the most liberal of the industrialized countries. In those respects, at least, everyone in the world wants to be like us.

No, actually, Australia (and New Zealand) have more open economies than you do.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Lemmy Caution]

There's a word for this. It's called hegemony. It has repercussions far, far greater than this.

That geeks only are aware of it when it affects those few IP rules that they care about, is sort of sad.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[marko123]

IAAA(ustralian), and it's more like "Beginning of a tightening end".

None of this has been discussed on the radio today. It's all about sugar being left out of the agreement. I work at an IP firm (IANAL,IAACP), but I think the homogenization of national laws also leads to the globalization of protest for legal change, which could be of benefit to countries with weaker lobby groups.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[vivian]

Well it's a lot more fun living in a country founded by criminals than a country founded by puritans.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Sique]

The courts in Massachusetts are trying to legalize gay marriage across the entire country. They aren't elected officials, they don't even have to pretend to care what the people think.

The U.S. Constitution has also some legal stuff in it most people would vote against if it would affect only other people. The courts in Massachusetts basicly told the people that they don't have the right to forbid gay marriage, because that would be unconstitional. Gay marriage for most americans affects other people, so it's a good thing to them to forbid it. They would think otherwise if it would be about their own children.

So there is a difference between "what the people think" and "what the people think about other people". Keep that in mind.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Alsee]

Because we're the world experts in free-market capitalism. We're the ones who made it work when everyone else failed. Our economy is by far the most liberal of the industrialized countries. In those respects, at least, everyone in the world wants to be like us.

Really? Then why were WE in the exact same position as Autralia just a few years ago? It was the US "harmonizing" to life+70 with the Sonny Bono copyright extention act.

If we're the "experts" and "everyone else failed" and "our economy is by far the most liberal" then why should the US have broken from the "standard life+50" and copy the the minority of amature failed less-liberal countries that increased their term to life+70?

Obviously you're going to want consistency. That could genuinely be the only motivation here.

The only thing "consistant" is repeated and chaotic copyright extenions. If there was any sort of recent "standard" it was the Bern Convention which extended terms to the ludicrous term of life+50. Hardly any countries had such a long term when Bern appeared. Yet the US and most of Europe and other countries increased their durations to life+50. After Bern, the only valid argument for consistancy would be for the most common term, life+50. Then a few countries started trickling up to life+70 - France in 1997, UK in 2001. The EU "harmonized" to life+70, the US "harmonized to the EU in 1998, and not Autrailia "harmonizing" to the US.

Everyone changing (increasing) terms is anything but consistancy.

Yes there are benefits to conformity, but that argument is merely being used as a sock-puppet by those who simply want to maximize copyright everywhere and in every way they can.

Copyright is a good thing, but attempting to "maximize" it distorts and perverts it into a harmful thing. The US constitution requires copyrights to expire, and for good reason. Copyright are supposed to expire, expiration is a good thing.

If anyone thinks expiration isn't a good thing then the only valid argument would be for eliminating expiration, NOT extentions. Property rights don't expire, period. If copyright really is "intellectual property" then those rights should never expire.

The DMCA is an abomination, but too involved to get into here. And inventing DMCA protections in one country and then blackmailing other countries into adopting it is anything but "consistancy".

----------
off topic
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>Pass a law in one area, and then force other areas to pass similar laws to "harmonize".
The courts in Massachusetts are trying to legalize gay marriage across the entire country.

Not a very good analogy, and more than a little spin. Chuckle.

Massachusetts court isn't pressuring anyone pass anything. All they can do is strike down local law if they think it violates the US Constitution or Massachusetts Constitution.

For example they could strike down a Massachusetts law prohibiting Whites and Blacks from marrying. They have absolutely no power over Alabama, though one does presume that eventually the difference would be resolved one way or the other. Eventually Massachusetts will discover its error and reverse its local ruling, or eventually an Alamaba court will realize Massachusetts was right and strike down their own law forbiding interracial marriges.

They aren't elected officials, they don't even have to pretend to care what the people think.

Exactly. That is exactly why Supreme Court justices are appointed for life - specificly to make courts IMMUNE to mob rule and oppinions. What rights people have (or do not have) is not a popularity contest.

The courts job is not to care what people think - their job is to enforce the laws of this country. If you don't like a court's ruling you either appeal their "error" to a higher court, or you need to change the law that they are enforcing. In most cases they deal with people violating laws, but in some cases th

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[daBass]

Being a European (Dutch) living in the UK, I can assure you that most European laws are beneficial to the UK population. (though maybe not the goverment's corporate campaign contributors) You just don't like being told what to do.

Take for instance healthcare and transport, which are in shambles here and running just fine in the rest of Europe. It's funny how in one article in a paper there is complaint about the fact that "Europe's" (the British talk about Europe as something they are not part of) systems are so much better. Turn over the page and you can read a good whinging on how "we" don't want European laws and regulations (and taxes), the same ones that make public services work that well to begin with!

You can have your cake and eat it to, but the cake comes at a price and that price is that the rich will be less rich and the poor will be less poor. Sounds like a fair deal to me.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Wanderer2]

Our newspapers love to whip up a storm about anything and everything. EU laws that hardly affect us are not news. EU laws that may inconvenience a few people are presented as 'a threat to our way of life' (e.g. selling fruit and veg in kilos rather than pounds and ounces). The public perception is that the EU exists to make France and Germany rich and powerful to the detriment of others. Whilst there are occasions when this cynicism appears to be well-founded, it's not the universal truth that some papers like to present it as.

You're right that we don't like being told what to do by Johnny Foreigner! The press whips this up, but the tendency would exist without them, I think.

<AttemptToStayOnTopic effort='minimal'>We've seen with the software patents issue that the EU is prepared to make their IP laws closer to those of America. We've also seen a popular* negative response. After all, no European wants to be told what to do by Johnny American, do they?</AttemptToStayOnTopic>

Our railways and healthcare (and education) have been underfunded for years. The problem seems to be that every prospective government promises lower taxes and better services by 'cutting bureaucracy', then tries to achieve this adding another layer of bureaucracy (whose role is to cut bureaucracy).

* popular as in generally coming from the people, not that every man and his dog was up in arms.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[jadel]

The amusing thing is that the opposition party claims that they would be acting differently if they were in power - After all Paul Keating was the person who set us down the path of economic rationalism in the first place.
Looking at the 2002/2003 export statistics, it appears that the largest area is manufactured goods. At $A 45,590M it comes to a smidgen under 40% of total exports. Agriculture is listed as bringing in $A 2,403M or only 2% of the total. So if the agreement drops tarrifs on manufactured goods, I think overall Australia will end up ahead.
http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/94713ad4 45ff1425ca25682000192af2/367070b227b17db2ca256df10 0755a3a!OpenDocument

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Mr Guy]

That's "giving" as in hepatitis not "giving" as in Christmas.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[SubtleNuance]

The DMCA is the embodiment of a WTO treaty. This is the same WTO that people are protesting in the streets of Seattle, Quebec and Genoa.

You see, we techno-IP geeks (which we kind-of are) realize The Corporations are using the WIPO/WTO to shaft us -- Australia is just the most recent nation to fall victim -- these OTHERS are aware of their own areas. Artists talk about National Culture (arts, public broadcasting, museams, film production), people like Jose Bove talks about regional farming, farmers, land, food supply/quality, Maude Barlow and The Council Of Canadians speak about national soverignty, GM Biotech, etc etc etc.

What is happening is that Corporations are subverting social structures. In every facet of our culture, in every way, profit-driven organizations -- with incredible power, will and ability -- are un-democratically ruling.

In Feudal Europe, land-owners ruled. Peasants were lucky to have a 'job' where they were essentially powerless slaves, removed from decion making in their collective lives. Democratic Revolutions -- who's roots were in Ancient philosophies -- solved some of their problems, enabling the masses to exercise their will. Basically, one person, one vote. This was a 'better idea'. Then, in the late 18th century, some people began to see Democracy wasnt enough. Democratic control of the economy was necessary to remove the hammer and influence of wealth on society. Communist revolutions started around the world. Common people wanted to not only rule their civil lives but their economic lives via democracy. Many of the Communist Revolutions failed for various reasons... some survive today.

What(i belive) we are seeing right now, is the effective collapse of the Democratic Reovolutions. In the not-so-distant future, our very-own elected governments (already subverted) are going to create law that Over-Rule the rights of the Government to control The Corporations. These organizations will then assert feudal control over their segments of the economy -- nothing can challenge them (except maybe other corporations, but that is another discussion). Disjointed world-governance and the lack of a Powerful United Nations is to their advantage (it allows nations to be pitted against on another (Not joining the race to the bottom == starve more quickly))

Australia's new DMCA-alike laws are the embodiment of a WTO treaty, and not a surprise. Slowly but surely, all law will be removed that isnt 100% pro-corporation and pro-profit. There will be no other law*.

*you and the perpetual abortion debate/pageant does qualify as effective political discourse... dont be fooled by shiney things.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[npsimons]

In this country we do not so much vote for an Australian Government to govern us, as vote for a regional outpost of the United States administration who we hope will interpret American interests and policies in our favour.

You think that's bad? In America, we don't even get the president we vote for! And of course, in Soviet Russia, the government votes FOR YOU (to go to a gulag, or something).

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[Directrix1]

We don't, the electoral college does.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[uucpbrain]

The problem with you Aussies is that you're not demonstrating your sincere admiration for US ways. Imitate us. Accept the treaty, use it to get whatever it offers you, then unilaterally declare it terminated. Works great for us, we do it all the time.

Re:Beginning of a frightening trend?

[SoulSkorpion]

It's true. Gah, just when you thought you were safe from silly American laws by being outside the US, you're harshly reminded that for all the American arse kissing our politicians do it doesn't make a difference.

The thing is, Australian politicians have always, always held the paranoid delusion that the rest of the world is out to get us. Why, I do not know (maybe they think our natural resources are worth invading for). So they've always looked for some superpower to play big brother (and by that I mean "stop teasing me or my big brother will bash you", not Orwellian Big Brother). It used to be the UK, until it was decided after World War Two that maybe the UK weren't so desperate to secure our defense. Ever since, it's been the US. Why do you think we tagged along to Vietnam? Because we're your obnoxious kid brother.

The most frustrating thing is that this perception that we're at threat from international agencies is complete crap. Nobody notices Australia unless we deliberately do something to grab attention (such as be the only other nation to support a US military operation fot the umpteenth time). Take the Bali bombing for instance. A... nightclub, I think it was... which Australians were known to frequent was bombed by some extremist terrorist group. Tragedy as it is, the media and leadership had something of a field day with it, as it justifies that there really is someone out there targetting us.

Turns out that they actually thought they were targeting Americans. Yeah, they were reasonably happy that they managed to kill Australians, but it hadn't ever crossed their minds to go after us.

And you know what the funny thing is? It's almost only ever the politicians. Aussie culture borrows heavily from America, but public opinion is really quite ambivalent. It's only ever our glorious leadership embarassing us by taking us on another jolly outing with Big Bro America.

Not through yet

[Sad Loser]

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.

Re:Not through yet

[subStance]

Um ... you might want to note the following from SMH today.

Quarantine standards would be downgraded, Americans would be able to circumvent investment rules and American drug companies would get the opportunity to override the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that provides cheap drugs to Australians, the Greens said.

Re:Not through yet

[onenil]

A link to the Australian Broadcasting Council news story on the same item.

It's actually the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as noted throughout their copyright notice, etc.

Re:Not through yet

[jacbo]

I agree that the senate has the chance to stop this sillyness before it gets too far, but only if the senators themselves understand the issues properly.
The media will "egemecate" the people and make everyone support a DMCA style system, because it would be unAustralian not to.
Thankfully we don't have Senator "Plasma Dick" Alston to luddite his way through it all.

Re:Not through yet

[acb]

Yes, because we all know that both major parties really need the geek/penguinhead vote.

Har har har

[Anonymous Coward]

Togeather, we shall drink Fosters, make fun of women, and pirate CDs. Well blokes, here from the US to down unda!

Re:Har har har

[dms0]

no one in australia drinks fosters
why do you think we send it overseas?

dms0

FTA not all it's cracked up to be

[scrote-ma-hote]

Here in NZ, everyone is upset because we missed out on a fair trade agreement with the States, no one really expects one, but every once in a while someone pops up and says there's one around the corner. I tell you what though, with those kind of agreements required, I feel better off not having one. Let alone all the sucking up Aussie has had to do to get it.

Re:FTA not all it's cracked up to be

[log2.0]

Well, the WTO is supposed to be implementing global free trade without the requirement for silly back scratching techniques.

It would make the world a better place and everyone knows it, but there are always those selfish people who dont like the idea of free trade.

Oh well, looks like, as an Aussie, things aren't going to be as good here.

Re:FTA not all it's cracked up to be

[McSporrran]

I'm not upset at missing the fair trade agreement and I'm also a Kiwi. US FTA's are carrots they dangle in front of you while insisting you open your economy to US corprate predation. I'm well pleased that we havn't followed the Australians into the Iraq madness, and hope that we manage to avoid getting caught up in DCMA and Copyright term madness.

Re:FTA not all it's cracked up to be

[NewtonsLaw]

The big wory for NZers must be the effect this FTA could have on the CER treaty between NZ and Australia.

It would not surprise me if NZ now came under extreme pressure to fall into line with Australian laws (aka: US laws) in key areas.

Let's face it, the NZ government had no hesitation in handing over the responsibility for creating and maintaining the laws that control non-prescription medications in NZ (including vitamins and supplements) to Australia just a few short months ago.

This does not bode well for things such as NZ copyright, patent and other IP laws.

Bad news indeed

[Classic Novels]

This is terrible. For a business like ours that could only exist because of the public domain this is a sad thing to see. We were planning on introducing 1984 soon and shipping it only to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but this cuts the market down for it even more.

Re:Bad news indeed

[0x0d0a]

Your "business" is a travesty of every artistic intention the authors of those works had.

It'd be a ton of fun to lock a copyright nut like you and an anti-IP nut like Stallman in a room with observation windows and see what happens.

Re:Bad news indeed

[NoMaster]

Your "business" is a travesty of every artistic intention the authors of those works had. I don't believe that they (or their descendants) should be allowed to use the law to stop it happening, but you'd think that common courtesy and respect for their efforts would. Obviously not.

Why not use your own creative energies to do something original, rather than ripping off and defacing the work of those more talented than yourself?

Sorry, the Walt Disney discussion is two threads over that-a-way -->...

Don't think this mean going from good to bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia was always shit with copyright, and under the control of various copyright groups anyway. A friend I knew at university was accused of distributing large amounts of software. He had his house raided, his computers taken, his parents laptops seized as well, all under suspicion. Nothing was ever found, he hadn't (to my knowledge) ever distributed copyrighted software, nor was he ever charged with anything.

Do you think he ever got any of his stuff back? No chance. The police say they no longer have it, but aren't forthcoming about which copyright agency took possession of it. It shits me especially since he was borrowing one of my motherboards and drives at the time. All gone.

That was in 2000. There's no accountability now, I don't see this as making anything worse.

Re:Don't think this mean going from good to bad

[caitsith01]

We do have disturbingly bad copyright laws. The same goes for libel/slander and a number of other areas.

As I see it (as a lawyer), the key to this problem is that Australia was formed in peacetime by a group of what were essentially businessmen, or at least people mainly concerned with business and commerce. As such there is virtually nothing in our constitution, or our mentality, to protect the individual from the government. It was essentially left to the parliament to do whatever was deemed necessary in these respects - as the ASIO Bill and similar have shown, this is something far too important to be left to politicians.

IMHO, Australia is in a lot more danger than the US of succumbing to the parental state, not 1984 but definitely Brave New World-ish. People here just don't give a shit, and when it comes down to it it is the acquiescence of the general public that allows governments to behave in an authoritarian manner.

It's very depressing.

Re:Don't think this mean going from good to bad

[castrox]

Uh, maybe you should find a new friend, since that one obviously screwed you by selling your stuff on the street.
Your story just doesn't seem right.

DMCA + Anton Pilar order = ???

[MaineCoon]

This could lead to more Anton Pilar order raids... perhaps larger companies raiding smaller companies and seizing equipment to drive them out of business.

The Austrailian Constitution?

[centralizati0n]

Does anyone with knowledge of Austrailian law know if the Austrailian treaty will violate some of their freedoms in the way the American DMCA has violated some of the United States citizen's freedoms contained within the constitution? This wouldn't sound so outrageous if the freedoms contained within the treaty didn't really tread upon Austrailian constitution/law, but if not...

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia does not have a bill of rights, and the consitution doesn't really focus on the rights of individual.

It's probably reflective of the circumstances in which the country became a federation -> via an Act of parliament and not a war.

Also interesting is that the governments powers in relation to the areas where laws can be enacted (listed in Section 58) can be somewhat overridden by treaty obligations!

It happened before -> the Federal government stopped a dam from being built (a state issue) in Tasmania by declaring the area it was being built in a world heritage listed area.

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[BlastM]

We're Australian, we have no freedoms.

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[Loki_1929]

" Does anyone with knowledge of Austrailian law know if the Austrailian treaty will violate some of their freedoms in the way the American DMCA has violated some of the United States citizen's freedoms contained within the constitution?"

As of late, governments are discovering that getting on with their business of the day becomes far easier if things like their Constitution, the rule of law, human rights, additional rights of the people, basic decency, and respect for human dignity are entirely ignored. Thus, men are no longer ruled by ideals or laws, but by the whims of those who happen to be in power at any given time. Luckily, we've become sufficiently advanced, militarily, that the revolutions of old which had always corrected such problems are no longer possible.

Let's hear it for progress, ladies and gentlemen.

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[aebrain]

Australia does not have a bill of rights

Well actually, we do, technically. Queen Anne's Bill of Rights of 1689 is still on the books, inherited from English Law. Some quotes:

That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;

Oh, you thought the US invented this concept? The "Founding Fathers" had a very flexible definition of Copyright.

The Australian Constitution is available on the web (Naturally), and a casual read will show that it's been heavily inspired by the US one of over 100 years earlier. We like to think ours is better, but YMMV.

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[caitsith01]

There is very little chance of the constitution stopping this, because the government can use the external affairs power to implement anything that is explicitly enumerated in a treaty with a foreign power.

More likely is that there will be problems actually implementing the terms of the deal - just signing it has little effect at law in Australia, at best it may make the deal a 'guide' for decision making in the government. To actually have an effect, though, the terms of the treaty must be passed by Parliament, and fortunately the upper house is rarely controlled by the government in this country. I would say that parts of this deal may be shot down by the Senate - but it will mainly hinge on politicking, rather than the actual terms of the deal.

Re:The Austrailian Constitution?

[wombatmobile]

Australia doesn't really have a constitution in the same way that America does. Well, there may be some documents in Canberra but nobody has read them. They weren't written by anyone that anybody knows or cares about.

Australia isn't America, yet.

What about Gutenberg?

[MarsCtrl]

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)?

Re:What about Gutenberg?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I don't imagine they will be able to recall public domain items back into copyright

Why not? They did exactly that here in the USA, stole about 10 year's worth of stuff from the public domain and put it back under copyright.

Fuckers.

Re:What about Gutenberg?

[femto]

That would make an interesting consitiutional challenge.

Section 51xxxi of the constitution says

The acquisition of property on just terms from any State or person for any purpose in respect of which the Parliament has power to make laws:

As an Australian citizen, aren't I entitled to 'just terms' (ie. compensation) for those public domain items which the governmet is going to try and steal from me?

Re:What about Gutenberg?

[dvdeug]

They did exactly that here in the USA, stole about 10 year's worth of stuff from the public domain and put it back under copyright.

No, they didn't. In Britain, when they enacted life+70, they returned all stuff that had left life+50 but not life+70 to copyright. In the US, however, copyright extensions have merely extended the length of copyright, not returned anything to the public domain. The latest copyright extension made it 95 years for old books, but all the books that had left copyright - those older than 1923 - stayed out of copyright.

There's one exception, though. At one time, to get US copyright, you had to publish in the US within 30 days, and renew that copyright in 28 years. Failure to do so would lose copyright in the US. The URAA returned copyright to all the foreign books that had lost US copyright or (more common) not got it in the first place.

Write to your Members of Parlaiment *NOW*

[femto]

Handwritten snail mail letters are preferred.

Addresses here. Don't forget the senate as Greens and Labor together may defeat any required legislation.

Don't be abusive, but explain the problem clearly. Most pollies probably aren't even aware of how dangerous such moves are to Australia's well being.

Re:Write to your Members of Parlaiment *NOW*

[Bunyip Redgum]

An even better approach might be to mimmic groklaw.net and set up a web site that will allow us to track all the arguments for and against these issues and give everone an appreciation as to how dangerous these changes are.

I am currently listening th PM (evening drive time current affairs on the ABC Radio National). No mention of these isssues as it is dominated by agriculture where we definitely lost out!

Why can't anyone get it right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the USA. Sometimes it's government does things right and sometimes it does things wrong. When a bad decision is made by the US government, I look to the rest of the world to show them the light... but what happens? They say "great job! we'll do the same stupid thing". Why can't some countries do something different than the US and prove that there is a better system out there.

If the world becomes homogeneous we will lose out on the benefits of diversity. Europe became strong because it was so diverse. Once it and the rest of the world is thoroughly homogenized, the world will be a worlthless clump. It will never grow. Competition and diversity breeds success.

Misery? And then some.

[BiOFH]

I suppose this is the misery-loves-company school of treaty negotiation.

Not really, it's more of a John Howard Loves George Bush kind of negotiation. Johnny wants to be in the club with Dubya and Tony. So he sent troops, maintains the US had intelligence on WMD, defends Bush and Blair in the press, talks tough on gay marriage ('survival of the species' he says... apparently if gays marry then hetero couples will somehow lose the ability to procreate), etc. Anything the US wants, Howard wants to give them.

He has a bad case of "little man syndrome" and wants to play with the "big boys" really bad.

The opposing party brought in their biggest brashest loud-mouthed battler to face him in the upcoming elections. Of course, once they made him their candidate they said "don't be so loud or brash any more" so he's sort of impotent. It does not bode will for the people here in the land of beer and pokies.

This will be great for the economy!

[teamhasnoi]

Wow! Think of the billions spent on lawyer cruises to Austrailia!

Wait a minute! Are we just following the lead of the British? Sending our worst criminals, the dregs of society, to Austrailia?

Don't do it Aussies! It's a trap!

Well, at least Australia will be world leading ...

[1in10]

Australia already has bugger all fair use rights (we can't even tape a show from TV for later viewing legally).

Now it looks like we're set to inherit all the bad stuff from US IP laws.

We'll be leading the world in fucked up IP legeslation. Things are really looking up for Australia's place in the world!

This is completely rediculous.

[euxneks]

Now they're making other countries follow their laws for free trade agreements? What the fuck? Ignorance must be commonplace.

the coming election(s)

[weighn]

this insignificant little Australian just wants to know if he'll get a vote in the Presidential elections. You know, now that we're a fully fledged 51st State.

Not another one...

[Kid Zero]

Man, the list of countries the people of the US have to apologize to because we can't keep our stupid Government in it's own backyard keeps growning and growning...

And we had to go to war in Iraq for this?

[oingoboingo]

Great. In addition to our beef and sugar farmers getting screwed (again), now we open ourselves up to ridiculous copyright laws shown to be fundamentally broken already in the US. Is this what we have to show for the blood on our hands from tagging along in the Iraqi invasion last year? There's only one good thing about this, and that is it will help hasten the demise of John W. Howard as the Prime Minister of our country. And for that I can hardly thank him enough.

Australian IT have article

[a.koepke]

Click here for the Australian IT article on this issue

Containment

[kwandar]

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 :)

Re:Containment

[Graff]

The US which I personally view as one of the least democratic democracys

Um, that would be because the US is NOT a democracy. It is a representative republic.

In a true democracy every person has a vote on every aspect of the way the government is run. In a representative republic you get to elect representatives who make the decisions for you.

In a representative republic you are essentially handing the reigns over to your representative, choose a poor one and you are pretty much stuck until you can get him out and a get a new representative into office. On the other hand a true democracy tends to collapse under its own weight after a few hundred people are a part of it, simply because large groups have problems with coming up with definite decisions.

Our constitution

[Chuck Chunder]

is fairly dull and doesn't really mention such grand concepts as freedom.

Who Is Interested in Networking Against This?

[femto]

Who is interested in trying to letter box drop Australia, in an attempt to block this move and make it a serious elecion issue?

The whole country could divided into regions, each consisting of 1000 people. That makes around 10,000 regions to cover all letterboxes in the country. We need to find 10,000 Internet connected sympathisers, one living in each region. These people join a mailing list. Material to be dropped is sent to this list (digitally signed for verification). Each person prints 1000 copies at their expense and delivers promptly to all 1000 letterboxes in their region.

The hardest thing will be to agree on the material to be distributed. It should not be extreme, but plainly and simply put forward, in an irrefutable way, that extentions to copyright are not in Australia's interest. Try to keep party politics out of it and keep to the issue.

I don't have the resources or know how to run such a mailing list. Any volunteers (preferably based in Australia)? I'm in Sydney. If lots of people step forward, it will be light work. I don't hae much time, but even if I help get this kick started, by prompting people to come forward, then step away (I'm going to try not to) from it I'll have done my bit.

If interested send mail to copyrightaustralia@yahoo.com. Ideally the people who run this will not be into party politics, but will care passionately about copyright, IP and Australia's well being.

Apologies for the typos, but I am trying to get this out early to attract Slashdot's attention.

Re:Who Is Interested in Networking Against This?

[darnok]

I'm interested in getting involved against this becoming law, and I'll contact you offline. I'm particularly concerned about the stupidity of extending copyright to meet the so-called requirements of large US-based corporations.

However, it's important to realise that Australian common law offers built-in protection against a lot of the worst of the DMCA. Common law exists to remove the need for laws to deal with highly-specific information. It's one of the reasons why we don't get the continual barrage of new legislation that the US seems to get to vote on every few weeks.

Common law pretty much equates to "common sense". As an example, AFAIK there have been no prosecutions for illegal recording of TV shows - that's because we acquired certain common law rights when we purchased a VCR and one of those is the ability to use the "record" button.

Australian common law also protects (IIRC) e.g. decompiling code for the purposes of creating interoperability - it's no coincidence that projects such as Samba were started in Australia, as they are legally protected via a common law right to "use something you've purchased in a reasonable manner" (OK, that's oversimplifying, but it's not far from truth).

AFAIK, common law would "trump" any DMCA-like law that was introduced. Common law is enshrined in the Australian Constitution, and that isn't likely to be tweaked to accomodate Johnny-come-lately stuff like DMCAs.

Common law is one of the reasons why there's no overwhelming push for a US-style Bill Of Rights in Australia; many things that would be covered by it are already covered by common law. Any introduction of a Bill Of Rights here would probably only create grey areas that don't currently exist. Although there's very little to actually prevent it, we also don't have governments subjected to massive and well-organised financial lobbying from interest groups (e.g. large companies); such lobbying in the US is primarily driven by a proposed transfer of rights from individuals to those interest groups, and common law protects us as individuals to the point where these lobby groups have no reason to exist here.

Oh, IANAL but I've dated a few... A useful reference on common law is at http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/alta/alta95/m ason.html

Re:Who Is Interested in Networking Against This?

[cthugha]

I think you should go and have a talk to your lawyer friends about some of the misconceptions you have disclosed in your post. You got it right when you referred to the common law (i.e. the body of judge-made law that can trace its origins back to the Norman monarchs, and really got going when the Plantagenate Henry II established a uniform court structure to replace the local assemblies previously used by individual areas to dispense justice specific to that area) as common sense, but the common law is almost entirely subordinate to the will of Parliament, which, like Congress, has a reputation for doing all sorts of stupid things. The US is also a common law jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped the DMCA yet as far as I am aware.

Your reference to the lack of specific legislation is simply reflective of the differences in legislative practice between Australia and the US. Australian Parliaments tend to make statements of general principle that the courts can interpret with a certain amount of flexibility, whereas US legislatures seem to be much more controlling, even to the extent of very specific (and often quite harsh) sentencing formulae.

The right to record TV broadcasts doesn't actually exist: it is most definitely illegal. The right to decompile is protected by legislation, not by common law. Go read the Copyright Act (avaiable at AustLII) for more info.

Finally, the article you linked to is by Sir Anthony Mason, Chief Justice of the High Court during the most progressive era of its existence. His words should therefore be treated with a certain amount of caution, especially given the more conservative, literalist makeup of today's Court.

Independence Day?

[failedlogic]

Australia is having some problems in adapting to globalization, specifically with technology development.

Granted, Australia is a faily isolated island, but many industrialized countries are using Internet and telephone as though they are commodities. Last time I looked at pricing for such services in Australia the costs were astronomous.

With the possible adoption of this DMCA type legislation - which has slowed some technology research in the US - I don't see this helping Australia to modernize its economy. Unless of course, the free trade is really beneficial. While Canada and Mexico might have benefitted from NAFTA, it was only because the US knew it was to its advantage to use it. Now, Australia will be used too.

Re:Independence Day?

[0x0d0a]

Last time I looked at pricing for such services in Australia the costs were astronomous.

Think about the population density in much of Australia. It's the second-lowest in the world, right after barren Mongolia, according to about.com. It's expensive to run phone cables out to remote sheep ranches in the middle of the desert.

That being said, I'm still amazed that Aussies have such a anti-tech hard-core conservative political bent, what with all their censorship laws and the like.

Re:Independence Day?

[wolvie_]

Why does Internet and telephony cost so much in Australia?

• We have a Universal Service Obligation enforced by law which requires that access to communication services be equal in rural areas to high density cities. In a very large country with a very low population density, that increases the cost of providing the service.
• We are geographically isolated. Undersea fibre links cost a lot of money to run and maintain. Why is this such a big deal? We predominatently want Internet content from other English-speaking countries. Asian countries have very cheap broadband because most of their bandwidth use is domestic (most content they want is locally hosted). Not so with Australia - we produce relatively little content, but consume loads of it (so we generally pay the majority of the cost of the link rather than sharing the cost with the other countries we peer with).
• Domestic IP traffic costs even more to carry than international IP traffic. There isn't enough scale on the long-haul interstate fibre connections for the price to fall to reasonable levels.
• Our biggest (49% privately owned) telco owns all the core infrastructure (exchanges, local loop, ADSL hardware), and are more interested in making a healthy profit than delivering affordable services.

And having said all that, it really isn't so bad now. 32GB/month 512/128 ADSL for US$60/month or 10GB/month 1500/256 ADSL for US$70/month. Sure there's loads of room for improvement, but we aren't the broadband backwater we were 2 years ago.

Re:Independence Day?

[thogard]

The density argument is nonsense. 90% of the country has a population less than 1 person per sq km and they aren't getting broadband at all for a long time. The other 10% is very densly populated and is even more densly populated than the highest denity 10% of the US. Sydney and Melbourne are both bigger than Chicago now in population, area and density.

Re:Watch out...

[NightRain]

That's already started

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/06/10758540 63514.html

Why does New Zealand want one?

[Anonymous Coward]

America has no goods or resources that you couldn't obtain more cheaper from the APAC region.

While America would be a wonderful captive market full of consumers, the trouble is that they are all paying in US Dollars, and due to the fiscal irresponsibility of the US Government, that is nothing but American Debt. You give away your valuable goods and services to America and they pay you back in debt. Their debt, which is now your problem and not theirs, as there isn't an army big enough to force America to make good on their debts.

You sir are wrong.

[tehanu]

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.

Re:You sir are wrong.

[Billly Gates]

Funny how freetrade enables white colar jobs to move oversea;s but farming is untouchable.

Pisses me off too.

Its selective freetrade towards campaign contributors and its corruption to its core. Same is true with your government. Famers probably gave less to a conservative PM candidate and those who are in manufactoring and IP gave towards Murdochs campaign. They will hapilly now outsource your jobs away. But American farmers vote like you would not beleive and want high prices for American farming products via tarrifs so they can make more money.

Re:You sir are wrong.

[Alsee]

but seriouly, does any country have happy farmers?

Columbia?

You never hear them complaining about access to markets and free trade barriers.

-

Re:You sir are wrong.

[geekoid]

now if all those people would orginize, grab a few signs and RAISE SOME HELL, that just might get somewhere.
Of course, it is so much easier to cry into your Fosters.

Re:You sir are wrong.

[protect imagination]

Actually, I believe one million australians took to the streets and protested the war on Iraq (and those people probably had no objections to the war on Afghanistan), and Prime Minister Howard dimissed them as "the rabble".

What do you the the chances are that even one thousand people would protest IP harmoniZation?

Probably we will see a media release from EFA, but they are the "ultimate doctrinaire libertarians" and not a word they say should be believed. (I'm quoting the former communications minister).

BTW, it's VB / MB / XXXX not fosters. :-)

Re:You sir are wrong.

[wrmrxxx]

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?

During the lead up to the war, it was assumed by a lot of Australians that part of Howard's eagerness to get involved was due to an expectation of being rewarded with favourable terms in the upcoming trade agreement. I don't think he ever admitted that this was a motive, though.

What he did say quite explicitly, however, was that we needed to get involved in the Iraq invasion and occupation to show support to the USA in return for access to US intelligence data in the future. Is US intelligence data worth anything at all? Sometimes it amazes me how blatantly wrong and stupid our leaders can be, and how much of it we are willing to tolerate. Australians just don't seem to give shit.

Re:You sir are wrong.

[glesga_kiss]

Funny how freetrade enables white colar jobs to move oversea;s but farming is untouchable.

There is a reason behind this though. When World War III kicks off, you'll be glad of the locally grown food. "Yes, we have no bananas" as the song said.

Re:You sir are wrong.

[Rotten168]

According to the NY Times the "United States pays 10 times as much as Australia does in tariffs in the joint trade between the two countries."

Singapore Already on board

[Essef]

Singapore's FTA with the US came into affect on 1st Jan. It looks like the US is making it a matter of policy now to ram the DMCA down trade partners' throats.
See here: http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1000154.html

S.

Sheltered no more?

[m00nun1t]

I'd always thought being outside of the US made file sharing that little bit safer - an international legal boundary to cross before being harassed.

However, one particular line in the IP agreement shows that is no longer the case:

"An expeditious process that allows for copyright owners to engage with Internet Service Providers and subscribers to deal with allegedly infringing copyright material on the Internet."

Australian file sharers, beware.

The ACCC won't like this...

[PhilK]

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.

Not in the constitution.

[Politas]

Fair rights laws are covered by Common Law in Australia, not the constitution.

Interestingly, a lot of things that our laws say you cannot do (such as things covered by the US Betamax case) have never been tested in Australian courts. Is taping a TV illegal? According to the legislation, yes it is. Would the legislation hold up against Common Law? We don't know.

Won't pass through the Senate anyway

[grainofsand]

At the end of the day, there is no way that the Liberal Coalition in Australia will ever be able to force this so-called FTA through the Senate.
The ALP have indicated they will block passage, as has at least one Independent.

Long live the Senate.

Re:So much for the land down under...

[kiwirob]

Come to New Zealand instead. We are close to Australia and share a lot in common. But we have an Anti-Nuclear policy that prohibits US naval vessels from entering our economic zone with confirming they do not cary nuclear weapons or propulsion. As the US will never release this info, then can never come visit. Without changing our anti-nuclear policy a FreeTrade agreement is pretty much impossible for New Zealand.

You mean like Rap 'Music'?

[Chordonblue]

Just what do you think art is anyway? EVERYONE builds on each others art. Rock built off of blues and jazz, and those off of earlier forms still. There is no 'original artform'. We are products of an environment of prior art.

That's why copyright extensions will eventually be lifted. Not because 'we the people' don't want it.

Because in the end corporations will have restricted their OWN ability to market creativity with flexibility.

Re:You mean like Rap 'Music'?

[Chordonblue]

Well you say you're all for sampling - how much is considered too much?

Do you go by the amount of lines, words, or syllables?

Personally I think what he's doing is interesting. Is it art? Is 'Billy the Singing Bass Fish' art? Dunno. To each his/her own I suppose.

Some people say art is that which provokes an emotional response. Based on your reaction I'd say it clears that definition! :)

Chance for US to sort out its laws

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's an understandable first reaction to assume that the FTA means that we Australians will be changing laws to match the seppos, the actual wording of the section on IP rights mentions that the agreement will "work to reduce differences in law and practices, in the area of patents, trademarks and designs".

Why not reduce differences in laws between the two countries by changing US law to match Australia's?

PLEASE write to your MP/Senators

[caitsith01]

I work for a Federal Senator, and I *BEG* any Australians reading this to write to their Member of Parliament, Senator and local newspaper to raise awareness of the issues relating to IP laws in this deal.

Australians are extremely apathetic about politics and most of you probably believe that writing to an MP will have no effect, but I assure you that we read everything that comes in and the Senator reads everything personally too. It only takes a few letters to make a real difference.

They say for each letter written to a newspaper there are 30,000 people with the same opinion who don't bother to write. Don't be one of them.

Focus your letter writing on:
- the Democrats
- the National Party
- the ALP

The government is too tightly controlling of its members for anyone to break ranks, except maybe the nationals. The Democrats are probably the most important players, and the Greens are unlikely to deal on this and the ALP will make a strategic decision.

This is par for the course.

[adept256]

As an Australian I'm not really surprised at our prime-minister's submissive attitude towards America. Mark Latham, now leader of the opposition and potentially our next prime-minister, once famously commented that prime-minister Howard was an 'ass-licker' while referring to talks between the president and the prime-minister.

It may have been a little imprudent to say so in front of the media, but he was simply saying what alot of people were thinking at the time. Maybe if American politicians had the courage to be so forthright there wouldn't be DMCA or Patriot or IP lawyers mocking your most basic constitutional rights so flagrantly.

Speaking of which, the 'licker' comment was made during the lead up to the war in Iraq. The assertion was that if we supported the US in their little WMD wild goose chase, then we'd be favoured in the upcoming free-trade talks (not to mention post-war contracts). I guess they stiffed us on the free-trade!

Re:This is par for the course.

[LordLucless]

I'm definately not saying that Johnny Howard hasn't been spit-polishing Bush's shoes, but I have my doubts that Labour would have done anything at all different.

America is big. Under its current leadeship, it is also not kindly disposed to people not playing ball with it. Considering how much Australia relies on the US, it would be politically irresponsible not to go along with America.

Compared to the size of its borders, Australia has a terribly small military force. Being on the US' nice side means we might be able to borrow some of their nice, shiny killing machines if something nasty happens in the world. It also means they might buy more of our stuff, and cheaper, which our economy would really like (although I'm not sure 18 years in the future is going to greatly help).

Basically, what I'm saying is that if Mark Latham had been PM at the time, he'd have done exactly the same thing, and Little Johnny would have called him an ass-licker, except more politely.

The DMCA

[lateralus]

The DMCA: Democracy Means Cash for Americans

A Message to John Howard

[fireman sam]

*Language warning*

I don't care about karma at the moment.

I've been hearing this crap all day on the radio how it is better for Australia, Australians and the farmers. But behalf of all the Australians who know what it will be like with this agreement, I say FUCK YOU MR JOHN HOWARD, soon to be ex prime minister of Australia.

Thankyou slashdot for allowing me to vent my frustration.

Re:Offtopic: Shocking lack of financial benefits

[Resound]

Absolutely! Which is why you certainly won't see us looking at other brutal regimes too closely in case someone actually expects us to do something about them! Crap, if we'd actually wanted to make a stand against crimes against humanity we would have had to go into shitholes like Rwanda and Cambodia and who knows where else! I mean...what?...oh riiight...sarcasm, huh? Sorry I spoke out of turn.

Re:Buzz! Sorry, you're wrong.

[Rip!ey]

Legally, you must do all in your power to cast a valid, formal vote.

You are required to attend a polling station on poll day (get your name ticked off the register) and are required to legally dispose of your voting slip. There is no law requiring me to fill in the boxes correctly and place the voting slips in the correct box.

Will you be prosecuting for voting informally? Definitely not, since there's no way they can know.

I have walked into a polling station, grabbed my forms and had my name ticked off the register, and immediately walked out, dumping my forms in the bin (torn in half several times to prevent retrieval and use) as I go. I have done this in two seperate elections so far, and have been on the electoral role for 14 years. The bin sat right in front of the electoral officer who *could* have me charged if I broke any electoral laws (interfering with someone elses vote say?). They *can't* not know about that (especially sine I go out of my way to make sure they do), and they also can't charge me with any offence, because I did indeed "legally dispose of my voting slips".

And for the record, I'm not an idiot who doesn't give a shit about who wins the election (its never the voters, thats for sure), I'm just someone who refuses to vote if there is no decent candidate, one who prays for a day when the informal vote is counted and considered a vote of no-confidence in all parties involved.

Re:So much for the land down under...

[kiwirob]

Immigration NZ lists a lot of IT jobs as being "Priority Occupations". These make it pretty easy to come into the country and work.

There are heaps of really good recruitment companies that help with a lot of this sort of stuff if people want to come on over. Here is the directory listing of recruiters in nz Google NZ Recruiters

Re:There is always New Zealand...

[caitsith01]

Well, it makes a nice change to Australia.

If you're white, educated and already rich, come on in (can you believe that our main source of immigrants is still the UK!?).
If you're downtrodden, 'ethnic' or otherwise disabled then try New Zealand :)

The US government pulled a fast one

[dbIII]

This negotiations had a time limit. It was was a "once only, buy now and don't read the fine print M'am you can trust me" sort of deal. The Australian Prime Minister needs the deal in name, no matter what the substance is to be able to have something to show for helping the US in Iraq (you may have done it for the weapons but we did it for the money - nice aren't we) in the upcoming elections. To give you an idea of the deal - Australia gets to sell beef to the USA without it being hit with a tarriff or restricted in volume, but not until EIGHTEEN years have past. It will happen just in time to get Aussie beef on Mars. It's no surprise the the DMCA comes as part of the deal.

Australia is still mainly an exporter of agricultural goods (including enormous amounts of sugar and beef) and minerals, I live in one of the biggest cities in Australian and the biggest industry is probably tinning pineapples. As a result we'll get the DMCA for virtually no return, and the USA won't get a lot back because even at 10% less US manufactured goods are going to be more expensive than the asian equivalents of similar quality. About all the extra stuff the USA will be able to sell over here is agricultural goods.

Re:The US government pulled a fast one

[LordLucless]

Just because you can point to one point in time and say "things were worse then" doesn't mean there's a reason we should accept the crap we're given today. Not to mention that in the times of Nixon and Reagan, the US wasn't as influential as it is now. What those guys did primarily screwed the US. Now, I don't have anything against American citizens, but if you're governments screwing you over, that's your business. I get concerned when decisions in America start having knock-on effects throughout the rest of the world.

My letter to DFAT

[rhysweatherley]

I've already sent off the following letter to DFAT, and I urge others to do the same. The e-mail address is us_fta@dfat.gov.au. (We actually do already have DMCA-style laws here, but they were neutered a little last time).

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/

Re:A Romeo & Juliet "Happy Ending"?

[LordLucless]

the onanism of having your own name placed in such works

You mean like taking "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet", by Arthur Brooke, and rewriting it as a play? It's called adaption, and it's a staple of how literature develops.

changing the ending into a happy one is something that I certainly consider disrespectful

How can it be disrespectful? Despite how they're performed now, Shakespeare's plays were originally done before a crowd of uncultured, common folk, who often talked and called out during the show, and consisted in large part of crude jokes and sexual innuendo. Shakespeare wrote for his audience. They wanted tragedy. He wrote tragedy. If Shakespeare was alive now, he'd be just as likely to write feel-good comedy or an action movie as the next scriptwriter.

Taking a classic and insisting nobody ever changes it is a brilliant way of making sure that classic dies a horrible death. Just think of the splash Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet made in the popular media. And regardless of what the intellectual feel about popular media, all great classics arise from it; either inspired by it, or constructed in opposition to it. Thinking a work should be immune to change just because it's old is stupid; it should be the opposite. Something so old, yet still so loved, should be tinkered with, fiddled with, changed, and added to, to try and get the most out of a great piece of art.

Re:Offtopic: Shocking lack of financial benefits

[LarsWestergren]

You're right: what's the point of ridding a country from a vicious dictator who brutalizes his own population, destroys the environment, instigates war and supports terrorism unless you actually get some financial benefit from it?!?

No, you are right, we should do it because it is the right thing to do. So, when does the war against Bush begin?

Joking aside, most of the people who criticize Bush and the war are making just your point, though you seem to have missed it: We belive they started the war for their own financial benifit, not because of the goodness of their hearts. After all, they don't mind vicious dictators anywhere else.

Re:So much for the land down under...

[dbIII]

You know, I've often looked at Australia as a potential future home

You won't find it easy - immigration is probaly the major election issue (the federal government can do nothing about law and order except make noises, and health is something you cut funding on to embarrass the states which are all run by another political party). It took a US citizen I know quite a long time (I think it may have been over two years) to emigrate to Australia, and that's after he married an Australian. They had to live apart for quite a while due to visas running out in both countries - they had to spend most of their time together in Mexico!

It's really sad to see Australia going the way of the United States

It's been happening for a long time. First we copied the Californian electricity supply system (you all think I'm joking don't you) and now we are copying the health care system, so copyright and patents are bound to follow no matter how broken the system is. Things will not transfer well, so the system is bound to break a little more.

My soldiers went to war...

[Anonymous Coward]

...And all I got was this lousy trade agreement.

Promote the progress of science and useful arts

[SgtChaireBourne]

Actually, Stallman is very much pro-copyright. The GPL uses, supports and depends on strong copyright to ensure that rights are not diminished. This goes very strongly in line with the notion of copyright put forth in the U.S. constitution.

I think what you might be trying to say is that a small, but vocal, minority of businesses are trying to prevent the progress of science and useful arts.

Re:A Romeo & Juliet "Happy Ending"?

[kubrick]

Indeed -- and they corrupt and completely trash their source materials. Milne's Pooh stories are a good example of this, comparing the originals to the Disney-fied versions.

Culturally they are vandalising our heritage just like this "customised classics" moron -- just on a much larger scale.

A sad day...

[wew]

This is a sad day for public information in Australia--and just when it looked like the free trade agreement was not going to go through because of US intransigence over agriculture! Unfortunately, John Howard decided to sell out completely.

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

Maybe it's not all irretrievably bad?

[alien_blueprint]

I know, it's a controversial idea. :)

From the article:

Tighter controls on circumventing technological protection of copyright material together with a mechanism for examining and as necessary introducing public interest exceptions in relation to technological protection measures, along with a transition period to provide the opportunity for public submissions in this area, as well as other measures in relation to circumvention tools

From this paragraph, it appears that the government would actually like to hear what the problems are with legislation that outlaws software that might potentially be used to infringe others "intellectual property". At least they are aware that this may cause problems, and I see this as a good thing.

So, Australian /. readers, get *off* /. and get cracking on those submissions! Or, perhaps, get involved with some organization that's likely to put together such a submission and contribute. Or at least let them know it's an important issue. The Australian Computer Society might be a good place to start, for example. While you won't get rid of this completely, you may help mitigate it so that it's not ridiculously sweeping or draconian.

All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men only rant on Slashdot (or something).

Re:Maybe it's not all irretrievably bad?

[Quizo69]

We'll help:

www.neteffect.org.au

Howard: children overboard scandal

[tehanu]

Because you are absolutely naive if you think Howard cares at all about the people of Iraq. He didn't say anything when the Kurds got gassed. Before the war, during the war and after the war he demonised Iraqi refugees and tried to send them back to Iraq so that Saddam Hussein could kill them. He even lied about Iraqi refugees throwing their children overboard in order to get re-elected. This was a huge scandal in Australia. So during the last election he was willing to sacrifice Iraqi refugees in order to get re-elected. Do you really think he gives a damn?

I seem to remember him admitting that the reason Australia was going to war was to help America. Helping the Iraqi people was never an issue. The Free Trade agreement was an issue that was repeatedly brought up by politicians and the media as well as the need for American military protection. Considering this he is stupid to send troops to war without guaranteeing economic and military benefits for Australia. He really is Bush's doormat.

Re:Howard: children overboard scandal

[mpe]

I seem to remember him admitting that the reason Australia was going to war was to help America.

Then he should renounce his Australian citizenship, go to the US and apply to become a US citizen. Who in their right mind wants a "leader" who's first loyalty is to a foreign country? This used to be considered to be "high treason", which might even still be a capitol crime in Australia.

The Free Trade agreement was an issue that was repeatedly brought up by politicians and the media as well as the need for American military protection.

What military threat is Australia facing which is beyond the ability of the Australian military to cope with?

Anagram

[SJ]

Well, Australia is an anagram for....

A Trial USA

I am thinking of moving to China... At least there you KNOW the government is out to screw you.

Re:Anagram

[gobbledok]

I *know* the Government is out to screw me, but I have to convince 50+% of all other Aussies to VOTE THESE BASTARDS OUT!

Hopefully this will never get through the Senate...

Re:Anagram

[adrianbaugh]

Bah. Even China's becoming pretty Americanised these days. Try Cuba - the government may still be out to get you but at least the cigars are good ;-)

misunderstanding

[sir_cello]

There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. People say "adopt DMCA style laws". The fact is that these laws (now enacted by the US, EU and other countries) are the result of the WIPO Internet Copyright Treaties agreeded upon in the late 1990's (1998 if I remember correctly).

What this means is that these countries long ago signed up to the treaty, it just takes a few years for legislative changes to be introduced and have effect.

Re:You brought it on yourselves.

[oingoboingo]

This is what happens when you give up your guns.

Absolutely fucking hilarious. The Australian posters on this board are all outraged that they're going to be forced to adopt U.S. style copyright laws, and that our government is nothing but a spineless U.S. puppet...and your insinuation is that by adopting more U.S. attitudes and laws, that will somehow make it all better? Maybe we needed to negotiate a free trade agreement on whatever it is that you're smoking right now.

"What?!? You don't like the taste of shit? I know how to fix that! Here's some more shit for you to eat!!"

Beef industry not so lucky

[Namarrgon]

Australia gets to sell beef to the USA without it being hit with a tarriff or restricted in volume, but not until EIGHTEEN years have past.

Nope, not quite. From the SMH article:

Mr Crombie said even after the long phase-in period, Australian beef farmers would still fail to get free trade with the US.

"After a transition period we had expected that all beef tariffs and quotas would vanish," Mr Crombie said.

"In contrast, under the agreement beef quotas will remain in perpetuity.

"And although all tariffs are eliminated, safeguard provisions are in place.

"These will result in tariffs being reimposed if there is even a minor downward movement in US beef prices - a drop of 6.5 per cent."

So basically, after 18 years we get to sell the US another 70,000 tonnes of beef (equivalent to only two days of US beef production), and the tariffs will be right back where they started if US beef prices drop slightly (so we can't even compete in the market). What exactly does this give us?

My uncle happens to be a significant (Australian) beef producer, and when speaking to him a couple of days ago, he seemed quite optimistic about the FTA. I wonder if he still is today.

To add

[tehanu]

Oh and to add, quite a lot of these refugees are still locked up somewhere - yes including children and have been for years. Some of them have gone so far as to sewing up their lips, committing suicide, etc. The Howard government is trying to reduce their legal rights as much as possible (Wait, they have the right to appeal? Hmm, let's see if we can take that away...)

Anyone in Australia during the last election would remember the demonisation of Iraqi refugees. Man, they were a threat to the country! Evil, I tell you, the sort of people who would throw their own children overboard these Iraqis fleeing from Saddam Hussein. They are not the sort of people we want in this country. If we don't stop them now, they'd all come here and ruin this fine country of ours Australia. Only the Howard government can stop this. The opposition would let all these *Iraqis* come in. This won Howard the election (he was trailing in the polls before he started this line).

After listening to Howard demonise Iraqi refugees for years, not even the most fervant Howard fanboy would believe that he went to Iraq to help the Iraqi people. Especially since the demonisation still continues to this day. In fact his core base would probably turn against him if he started expressing too much concern for Iraqis. Talkback radio (ie. Alan Jones and John Laws) would kill him.

Re:To add

[shplorb]

I think the main point is that there's a lot of other countries between us and Iraq. If these people really are genuine refugee's then why don't they "seek asylum" in the myriad of other countries? Why come all the way here? The fact that they come all the way to Australia rather than a closer country demonstrates that they are economic migrants, not genuine refugees. As such, they should be locked up or immediately deported to their country of origin because they're breaking the law by trying to sneak into our country under false pretenses.

Re:To add

[Snoopy77]

Name me one country between Iraq and Australia that is a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and is politically stable. Oh and don't worry about being fooled into thinking they're lawbreakers, Howard and Ruddock have decieved many people. If they were infact breaking the law then we'd lock them up in jail. At least there are better conditions in jail. They are asylum seekers, not illegal immigrants, just like the people at Guatanamo Bay are P.O.Ws not enemy combatants.

Oh and don't forget to sing the revised version of our anthem. Instead of "For those who've come across the seas we've boundless plains to share" it now goes "For those who've come across the seas we could not really care".

Correct me if I am wrong here...

[jonwil]

But doesnt this treaty have to be passed by both the US congress and the Australian parliment before this (and the other measures in it) actually become law?

We all know how most congressmen only care about money (the same money paid by big american corperations to Bush to get him to push for these nasty things in the first place) so I suspect getting the trade aggreement passed through congress would be trivial.

However, in australia, it has to pass through the Senate. Now is the time for all aussies to pressue the parliment NOT to pass this totally UNFAIR aggreement that basicly gives the US everything it wanted for nothing in return. Just like the senate has rejected or ammended several other contraveral/crappy pieces of Howard Government legislation (much to the annoyance of Howard), it can reject (being a treaty like this, they cant ammend it) the FTA. (at least I think so, I dont fully understand how this kind of thing works here in australia)

In any case, regardless of what happens, one way to protest (against this and other things including the general "bush says jump, howard says how high" moves that have been going on lately) is to not vote for howard or his party.

Why wont the farmers in america accept a "gradual reduction of protection over 15-20 years"?
Reducing the protection gradually over that long a period would give them plenty of time to either get better (and still be able to survive in a lower-subsidy/lower-tarrif/lower-protection environment or if thats not possible, to get out of farming into something else.

How times change

[Davidge]

Once upon a time Australia, and in particular the Liberal Party did not pander to every whim of the US Govt., in fact, Australia's Govt. used to have a backbone.

It would seem this is no longer the case (well ok, it hasn't been the case for quite some time, but Mr Howard's Govt. has really taken the cake this last term).

I'm exceptionally glad I put Liberal last in the recent Queensland elections. Roll on the National elections!

In the meantime, is there seriously anything we can do to stop this ?

US style copyright in Oz

[thephydes]

This is yet another example of the Auatralian Govt blindly following the USA, without any deep thought of the consequences. Frankly John Howard has butt licked George Bush so many times they should start sleeping together.

Most likely will not be ratified by Australian Gov

[xquark]

A few things should be noted about the agreement.

1.) Its an all or nothing agreement, meaning if either government does
not pass all of the agreement terms then the whole agreement is
termed void

2.) The opposition parties to the current Australian government are
all against the main terms of the agreement, because they don't treat
Australian farmers fairly especially sugar farmers.

3.) The agreement wont go through because in the long run it
favors the Americans more than the Australians in many areas.

4.) Tariffs have been lifted in Australian industries that are
slowly being moved off-shore into Asia i.e.: car manufacture

5.) The US has lifted tariffs on goods that already have a highly
competitive market in the US.

These and many more things about the agreement will see the agreement
fail to pass the senate in Australia, so as far as Australians having
to participate in the imbecilic decadent patenting and licensing
schemes of the US, all I can do is just laugh he he he he he heeeee :P

Re:You brought it on yourselves.

[kcbrown]

This is what happens when you give up your guns.

Yep. Why, with all the guns in the hands of civilians here in the U.S., the government would never dare pass a law like the DMCA.

Oh, wait...they did.

The Net Effect Party will oppose this

[Quizo69]

www.neteffect.org.au

We are a new Australian political party attempting to get 500 members and based online.

Our stance is that the FTA and specifically this DMCA provision runs contrary to Australia's best interests, so if elected we will strike it down.

We also oppose software patents and call for a dramatic reduction in copyright terms back to the 10 year timeframe or similar.

Visit our website, and more importantly our forum, for more in depth information and a chance to actively shape our policies.

The not yet ratified agreement.

[quinkin]

From the ABC website:

For Australia, the agreement includes:

• Immediate access to US markets for all manufactured goods and services;
• Elimination of tariffs on exports to the US of wheat, other cereal crops and minerals;
• Almost all tariffs to be removed from manufactured exports and the automotive industry;
• Sixty-six per cent of agriculture tariffs to go;
• The right to maintain local content rules in broadcasting and film;
• Maintenance of the hotly contested Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, although a committee will continue dialogue on health policy.

The United States will:

• Maintain full tariffs on Australian sugar imports;
• Maintain partial protection for its beef and dairy industries, with above-quota tariffs for beef not phased out for 18 years and an above-quota tariff allowed to remain on dairy;
• Enjoy open access to all of Australia's agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors.

It does appear there have been additional concessions made by Howard that are not being made known to the Australian public. It is only through the American spokepeople that we are aware of these concessions at all.

It has not yet been ratified by parliament, and the opposition is promising to block it in the Senate in it's current form.

We will see...

Q.

Write to us at Net Effect

[Quizo69]

Hand written letters are NOT preferred in our case. We're a new Aussie political party using 21st century technology to operate (shock horror!!), unlike the majors:

www.neteffect.org.au

Voice your disgust to us in person. We are a newly formed political party, and need your help to get 500 active members so we can run for election in the Senate this year. We're also based online, to make it really easy to contact us. Snail mail campaigns don't do much I'm afraid - better to have someone in parliament who will give you a voice in the first place.

In this case, that someone will hopefully be me, and anyone else willing to run for election this year under our banner. We are a new type of political party that WILL oppose these stupid laws, and have the knowledge base to understand their true implications.

You have a chance right now to DO something about it and MAKE this an issue at the upcoming election. So visit our website, jump into our forum and support us by becoming a member.

Potential peril for SAMBA?

[Emor dNilapasi]

The DMCA essentially outlaws the kind of reverse engineering which was necessary to create (and which is necessary to maintain) SAMBA and other pieces of FOSS which interoperate with proprietary software. And it just so happens that the folks who created SAMBA (hi Tridge!) reside in Australia. Now, if I put on my tinfoil hat juuust riight I can see Microsoft stomping on the one piece of software that allows the non-MS world to coexist with Windows, and just before the next version of Windows (with its obligatory changes to the networking protocols) sees the light of day. Coincidence?

RTF agreement?

[Shreav]

Details of the agreement

An overview

In particular, I quote:

"Australia retains the flexibility to implement the Agreement in a way that meets our domestic circumstances, for example, providing a mechanism to introduce public interest exceptions in relation to technological protection measures."

Re:RTF agreement?

[Davidge]

That may be, however, do you see the same Govt. that approved this agreement really doing anything that might be at all in Australia's benefits ? Especially if the US Govt. leans over and says "we'd prefer it if you did it /this/ way"

I'm sorrry, but naively believing the Howard Govt. would cross the US is laughable at best.

Re:And the funniest part is...

[Dr Caleb]

You left out Steel, Wheat, and cattle. Under section 11 of NAFTA, we aren't allowed to stop selling them petrolium, natural gas or fresh water.

The Auses don't know what they are getting themselves into. If there is anyone from Aus still reading this - stop this trade deal while you still own your own natural resources.

Re:You brought it on yourselves.

[Max Threshold]

Of course not. Read slowly and pay attention.

The U.S. Government has been rounding up guns for years, and the result was the DMCA and everything else. Where they haven't succeeded in actually taking our guns, they've succeeded in making anyone who owns one feel isolated and powerless.

Australia starts outlawing guns, people give them up without a fight, and wham... a couple years later you have a puppet government. Coincidence? I think not!

Threats to Australia

[cquark]

While Indonesia is the closest potential threat to Australia, the Javanese who dominate the empire are a minority and having a difficult time holding together the different provinces which were united only by Dutch colonial rule. While Indonesia has a large population, it's an extremely underdeveloped country--they have about 5 million telephones for that population, for example--which combined with their lack of unity makes it unlikely that they'd invade a first world country like Australia.

Your numbers are off by a fair bit, as there are approximately 20,000,000 Australians in an area less than half the size of South America, a continent noticeably smaller than North America. The number of Indonesians is closer to 200 million than 300 million (234,000,000 according to CIA World Factbook estimate).