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Australia-U.S. Trade Agreement Contains DMCA-like Provisions
femto writes "The text of the US-Australian Preferential Trade Agreement has been released. It has significant implications for Free Software and the Public Domain within Australia. Implications include extension of copyright terms (death to the Public Domain & Gutenberg Australia), software patents (death to Free Software) and the DMCA (death to fair use). It is not yet law. The Europeans have shown that software patents are not a done deal. Now is the time to write letters to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Join the EFA. Contact your local library. Sign up to the mailing list to organise opposition. Just make a noise during this year's federal election."
Before it becomes law and is in effect.
Therefore, contact your representatives and senators (particularly those senators who hold the ballance of power and are able to influence the passage or blocking of this) and let them know that the FTA is bad (not just for the IP laws but for the way it does absoultly nothing worthwile for our farmers and generally gives far more to America (and especially large american companies) than it does to Australia)
Unlike America where the passage of the FTA is a done deal (as long as the unmarked bundles of bills in the unmarked black briefcases get into the hands of the polititions that they are supposed to be bribes to anyway), its by no means certain that the FTA will pass in australia.
One thing to remember is that, unlike many bills that have passed through the senate after the government did deals with the minor parties and aggreed to some amendments, the FTA cant be ammended and has to be passed as-is.
One controversial aspect of the FTA that the US side was pushing for was the dismantling of the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The PBS is a list of specific medicinal drugs subsidized by the Government. I think it involves limiting of prices on the part of the manufacturer as well. Only certain medicines get on the PBS, but it means that the cost of treating a lot of medical conditions is lower as the pharmaceutical company's take is less. The giant US pharmaceutical manufacturers wanted to scrap this scheme and charge whatever they decided the market rate is. The conservative government in Australia knew that if it caved on the PBS, it would be electoral suicide (prices would jump 10 fold for most people using these drugs).
Little efforts such as these will only help those that Quizo69 are opposed to politically, as it will divide/split the vote and power of the side Quizo is on.
It is like the the U.S. Ralph Nader might as well have a "Bush/Cheney 2004" t-shirt, because that is what his campaign helps.
That's not true. In Australia, we have a preferential voting system, where voters rank candidates in order of preference. The lowest-ranked candidates are eliminated and their votes passed on to people's second preferences until one candidate has a clear majority.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
from: http://gutenberg.net.au/protest.txt
.shtml# 001522)
A volunteer has prepared a letter which could be sent to the Prime Minister or to your local federal member of parliament. If you would like
to use it, please save it to your PC (from the FILE Menu choose SAVE AS), print it out, sign it and send it to the parliamentarian of your choise at
Parliament House
Canberra.
* * * * *
Dear Parliamentarian,
With much concern I learned about the proposed extension of copyright to life+70 years in Australia under the misguided banner of harmonisation of copyright terms with the US and the EU.
The following arguments show why the change of the copyright laws are bad;
1.)
No scientific, independent, economic study has shown any public benefit from such a sweeping copyright extension. On the contrary, this extension causes considerable public harm.
The harm is caused by the fact that it extends the period that the public will be required to pay fees for the use of works. It reduces the timeframe in which potentially fragile media can be copied with a massive twenty years: resulting in a tremendous threat to our cultural heritage.
This legislation is only beneficial to the very small group of 'classic' works that are still exploited, a century after publication. -- it
therefore very much appears to be legislation inspired by private interests and moneyed lobbying. As an example of this, the Allens Consulting group published a supposedly independent, but highly biased report under the title: Copyright Term Extension: Australian Benefits and Costs ( see http://www.allenconsult.com.au/resources/MPA_Draft _final.pdf).
This report was commissioned by a clear stakeholder, the Motion Pictures Association.
Some very important notes to this report by the well known U.S. copyright lawyer Lawrence Lessig are available online on his web site.
(http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001522
2.)
In article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the access to cultural heritage is placed before the protection of individual author's rights, this indicates a clear priority of importance.
The proposed extension is in direct contradiction with this, and damages the careful balance between author's and the public's rights that the
UDHR requires.
3.)
ALL works published before 1923 are and will remain in the US's public domain!
Harmonisation between Australia's and the US's copyright laws would imply that Australia too places such works in the public domain, but, that cannot and will not happen (due to the australian 'death + 50 year' rule).
Will these (Australian works) be in the Public domain in US and not in Australia?
It is therefore clear that the proposed extension of our copyright laws does NOT lead to harmonisation.
4.)
The largest part of the world population lives in countries that maintain a life+50 regime for copyright, including all Australian neighbours.
A lot of arguments can be made to remain harmonised with these countries, many of which have not shown any intention to extend their copyright period.
5.)
It is not a requirement for the free-trade status with the US to be linked with the life+70 copyright protection. Canada already has free-trade relations with the US without being required to adjust its copyright term from life+50 to life+70, and, has no plans to do so
either.
6.)
The benefits of this extension seems to go to a small group of people who, in all likelihood, are only remotely related to the original authors
who have been dead over 50 years. Only in some exceptional cases will children of authors benefit from this extension, in some cases
grandchildren, but in most cases corporations who often have no emotional connection with the original author.
7.)
The long time span after publication of a work and the life span of the author increased with 5
And you'll find that if you read the fine print (http://www.dfat.gov.au/) that the FTA does give away Australia's rights. The US drug companies have the right to appeal pricing decisions in Australian courts.
This is all about the Australian Government selling out on Australia.
I don't like this any more than anyone else, but the inclusion in the slashdot short of "Death to fair use" is very misleading. Nothing can affect australia's copyright "Fair use" provisions because australia never HAD copyright "fair use" provisions.
To make any part of a copy of a copyright, australians ALWAYS needed explicit permission from the copyright holder to do so. Things were never any different.
This would be like an article related to the US with a writeup that "OMG this new law means we now no longer can take our children out the back and shoot them". You never could... legally.