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."

Comments

So what? Its already been signed.

[MrRTFM]

It's too late to do anything about it now - our fucking government signed this over without giving us the full text - we got a scant summary and vague assurances (which scared anyway me in terms of IP rights)

Well, I say this with bile in my throat, but I for one, do NOT welcome Australias new DMCA wielding overloads.

Re:So what? Its already been signed.

[koh]

You still can have the law removed or an amendment passed, maybe some exception for Free Software ?

Cheer up, everything is not lost yet.

Re:So what? Its already been signed.

[Famatra]

Very interesting, you should also consider trying to do a campaign to reduce copyright lengths, maybe to 20 years like patents.

I was also hoping to join an activist group / campaign (politically if they have one) at the local, national or international level to try and reduce copyright lengths. (The creative commons and Larry Lessig's blog are good sites but are not a campaign for copyright reduction laws per say).

If they can pass laws that keep on extending copyright law, I don't see why there can't be an opposition political movement that

It has nothing to do with capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with government being too powerful and meddling in the people's affairs.

Re:It has nothing to do with capitalism

[Ganennon]

No, meddling is when the government decides the tax on alcohol has to be high, the bar has to be closed at 3am and you can't bring more than one liter of hard liquor into the country. At least that's what people keep trying to say to the Swedish government.

Revolution?

[samcentral2000]

Am I the only one getting the feeling that this is all just going to escalate untill some sort of social revolution will be necessary?

Re:Revolution?

[Joel Carr]

Am I the only one getting the feeling that this is all just going to escalate untill some sort of social revolution will be necessary?

You certainly are not. I've never posted this before for a number of reasons, but what the heck here goes. I'll probably be modded into oblivion for it, and I wouldn't blame people for it. I would have done the same thing not long ago.

I think in times to come there will be modern day revolutions of sorts in Western Nations. The more and more the average person has their rights and freedoms taken away from them, the more likely it is to happen. Throughout history revolutions have occured when those in power have overly abused their position. Such a time is apon us again, it is bound to happen.

However, I don't see such a revolution being targeted primarily at the governments of the time, but more at big business. Still, it is likely that in such an event governments will fall. The reality is that big business is where the real power is. Big business heavily influences government policy. Big business lobbies aggressively for laws and regulations that put the ball more firmly in their grip, giving them the ability to crush the little guy on a whim. The time will come when people will no longer accept this.

Millions and millions of dollars is required these days to run a successful election campaign in many Western Nations. A lot of this money comes from big businesses. Do you think these power players are going to want something in return when their favoured politician takes power? You-bet-ya! And do you think it happens? Of course it does!

Big businesses are constantly moving to ensure that more and more of life is directly under their control. Whether it be patent laws, copyright laws, or frivolous lawsuits, big business are exploiting the system for their own personal agenda. Whenever they do this, people suffer as a result.

So back to the revolution. One day people are going to say enough is enough. People will take the law into their own hands. They will attack these companies and attack those who run them. The people will take them down. I don't see it being in the form of simple boycotts, although this is how I'd like to see it transpire. No, it is going to be violent. People are going to kill the CEOs of these companies and those who represent them. Then, when others step up to take their places, they too will be killed. Who then would dare fill the void, if they know it would result in their certain death. It would not be worth it. The companies will be physically overrun, and whatever remains of them will be destroyed.

Governments will then have a choice, if they are still left with one. They can either quickly start ruling for the people, or they will be destroyed and replaced by the people.

*** PLEASE NOTE. I IN NO WAY SUPPORT THIS KIND OF ACTION. IT WOULD MAKE ME SICK TO THE CORE TO SEE IT HAPPEN. HOWEVER IT IS THE WAY I SEE THINGS HAPPENING. ***

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laws must be passed in parliament

[Michael Wardle]

Copyright is a law (otherwise known as an act of parliament). It cannot be altered unless a bill passes both houses of parliament.

The Australian Government has a web site about The Australian Legal System that explains all this.

Boilerplate FTA

[orin]

Some of the reports I've read suggest that the USA/.au FTA is "so good" that it will be the basis of future US bilateral free trade agreements. So what Australia cops today, other countries seeking an FTA with the US will cop tomorrow.

As for the carrot and stick. The current .au government has yet to show us the carrots in this deal, all we seem to be getting is a whole lot of stick. Speaking of which, isn't it funny that two of the most vocal "drop agricultural barriers" advocates at the WTO didn't drop any agricultural barriers between them when they negotiated a bilateral FTA?

I'm sure the New Zealanders (who were excluded from a US/NZ FTA because they wouldn't join in with Iraq and won't allow nuclear warships in port) are really upset that they missed out on this one.

Re:Boilerplate FTA

[jadel]

From what I've seen of the FTA (this mornings paper had an interesting summary) most of it is beneficial to Australia. It does benefit the manufacturing sector more than agriculture but manufacturing is in dollar terms about ten times the size. For that matter neither would be worse off than if the agreement didn't exist.
The alterations for copyright are annoying but IMHO not fatal, its extension of software patents that has me worried.

DMCA-like Provisions?

[Locky]

Under existing Australian copyright law you're not allowed to create backup copies, even if you can legitimately prove you own the property in question.

I fail to see how DMCA-like provisions under the FTA will make current law even worse then it already is.

Not to mention most of the 'free' part of the deal doesn't come into the equation for another 18 years.

Great job, Mark Vaile.

Join our party and help us fight this

[Quizo69]

I started a political party here in Australia in January, in the hope of getting 500 members and getting ourselves on the federal ballot for this upcoming election.

Currently we have 11 members. This is pretty slow going. If you're Australian, take a moment to visit our site (see sig for link). Slashdot our PO Box with membership forms if you think we are worthy!!

The only real way to fight this sort of law is to actually get yourself into the political system by running for and winning in the election. So that's what I intend to do. If you want to help, visit our site and drop into the forums there, or simply read what we are about and see if our ideals match yours. We are based primarily on the internet and have set ourselves up as an open source tech savvy party, meaning that not only do we use open source, but we are making all our documentation, reports and discussions open as well. This is really the only way to make politics accountable again.

You may also want to consider running for parliament yourself (either through us or by starting your own party - you can even use our Constitution etc as a basis!).

Anyway, visit us and if interested tell your friends. This is the only way in today's society of getting this sort of law repealed.

Re:It's not too late

[Quizo69]

Well, whilst I am not YET in parliament, I do read and post to /.

See my sig for my nascent political party here in Oz.

I can tell you that we as a party will NOT encourage paper based petitions, but rather we will encourage emails and postings to our forums where the party hierarchy will always be active and responding to posts.

Snail mail to MPs is a waste of resources IMHO. I'm more than capable of reading emails and postings in forums, so why shouldn't other politicians be? (rhetorical question!!)

Anyway, drop into our forums and support us so we CAN get into parliament and do something to stop these types of draconian laws.

Reclaiming capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is gonna be unpopular, but this is the result of capitalism being taken to extremis.

No, it's corporatism. This is similar in some ways to capitalism, but reducing the freedom of a market is not capitalist.

Unpopular but I had to say it!

Unpopular? Here? ROTFL.

We have an active policy forum on our website

[Quizo69]

I know it's easy to be cynical. Hey, I am quite realistic about my chances. But Australian politics IS different to US politics. Whilst we have two (or three depending on who you ask) major parties, we do also have several minor parties in the Senate which keep a lot of the laws in check. It is here that I am aiming.

There's a quote that goes something like: "All evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing." If you play into the idea that you will never change anything, then you never will.

Our party policies are being shaped in real time via the internet on our forums. The policies will be a direct reflection of the wishes of our Members. This is fundamentally as democratic as it gets, and it ensures that the policies people really want will gravitate to the top. Thus we will be a party not of one or two issues, but of as many issues as our Members feel need to be issues.

Why not visit our site and see for yourself, and post your own thoughts directly to us? See sig for link.

Blow Against Telco's vs RIAA/MPAA

[Bruha]

legal incentives for service providers to cooperate with copyright owners in deterring the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyrighted materials.

Sounds like a veiled threat to those who seek to keep their customers anonymous against the rulings from the courts of the US allowing ISP's to keep their customers anonymous.

In fact all of section 29 seems to hint at giving copyright holders the ability to not only Sue the originating ISP but any other ISP/Telco/CLEC/RBOC etc for even passing off the traffic to their peers. IANAL but that seems to be one of the worst parts of this agreement.

Re:It will only help Quizo's opponents.

[The Fanta Menace]

No, it won't.

Australia has a preferential voting system, where you list the candidates you wish to vote for in order from 1 to N, where N is the number of candidates on the ballot paper.

If no candidate gets 50% or more of the vote, then counting goes to prefences, where the second preference of the candidate with the lowest number of votes get distributed to each other candidate, and so on, until someone gets more than 50%.

So voting for minor parties in Australia does not waste your vote.

Re:Capitalism getting way out of line

[flossie]

Europe is based on capitalism, sure, but culturally is different and hopefully capitalism will not reach the extremes we see in the USA.

You are absolutely correct. I have just finished reading an excellent book which explores in detail the difference between American and European capitalism: Will Hutton's "The state we're in". I strongly recommend this book.

Compulsory Voting

[KarmaOverDogma]

"It used to work when communities were small, and it would work better if voting (though it ought to include a 'None of the above') were compulsory."

Yikes!

If I knew that every person where I lived was *forced* to vote I'd be looking move to a place where this was not the case.

Just imagine how quickly American Politics,or that of any other "democracy," would reduced even further to the lowest-common-denominator if everyone was *forced* to vote.

I put democracy in quotes because, technically, the USA is not a democracy, it is a Constitutional Republic which has by its description and various amendments, representative government of a sort that is commonly labled "democracy." But that's another discussion....

Just imagine every bigoted/ignorant/stupid/closed-minded person who currently does not vote being forced to do so by your idea being adopted. This makes the assumption that the current voting population has a lower percentage of these undesirables than those who do not vote, but I'd be willing to bet this is a safe assumption on the whole.

I think what you meant to say was that everyone should be forced to vote in *an informed fashion* (perhaps by passing an exam?) but I personally disagree with the idea of forced voting; it diminshes the quality of voting.

IMO, with regarding to voting, quantity is no substitute for quality, and given a choice between the two, I'll chose the latter any day.

.

Re:As an Australian...

[oldbeamer]

Don't blame the American goverment for persuing the interests of those that hold their purse strings.

Blame the Howard goverment for agreeing to the TA and for all the lies and manipulations that are bound to come our way over the next few months.

And, of course, white Australia more-or-less began

[glenalec]

as a great big prison for politically inconvenient persons (Perth notwithstanding).

Australians have a long history of 'sticking one up' bad authority. This could get interesting (If we're lucky and the Aussies haven't lost their edge lately)!!

Australia's Govt. tends to be a bit of a lap dog to the US. I think it's mainly because the Brits told us to piss off when we asked for help against the Japanese in WWII (after we sent all those people to fight in Europe) and the US supplied the needed assistance. We are rightly greatful, but our representatives take it too far sometimes.

Note: IANAHistorian! Check my 'facts' before relying on them! Though I think I've stayed general enough to be safe!