Pay Attention To .Au/.Us IP Trade Law

Rusty Russell writes "The recent US-Australia "Free" Trade Agreement Chapter 17 (IP) locks Australia into our existing DMCA-style laws and extends them further: banning "access control" circumvention, extending copyright, guaranteeing penalties greater than actual damages for deliberate copyright infringement, committing us to recognising patents "whether a product or process, in all fields of technology", etc. Linux Australia has produced a draft position paper (rough HTML here), has a how to help page, and started a petition. Please help! " Rusty's a great guy - he's got some good links on his own page, but please take the time to do what you can - if you are a Australian, take the time to *physically* write your MP. Floods of post are what will create action.

Comments

A small grammar note

[B.D.Mills]

if you are a Australian, take the time to *physically* write your MP

Must we get black marker pens and write "your MP" all over bus shelters, park benches, toilet cubicles and any other surface that presents itself? I don't see how inciting vandalism is going to solve the problem.

Unless, of course, you mean "write to your MP", which is the correct form of this expression in Australian grammar.

Write to your MP here

[IronBlade]

Here's the listing of Australian Members of Parliament:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mplist.htm

Write a snailmail letter (don't email) to your local member and protest this junk!

Re:Write to your MP here

[thirdofnine]

Actually, I have written e-mails to minsters on several occations, and always gotten a snail mail reply (they are not allowed to reply via e-mail).

E-Mail is just as valid as snail mail when sent a MP.

I urge you all to send e-mail, snail mail, black mail ;-). The more of us that protest about this, the more likley someone will listen.

BTW, if we can get Latham to say that he will remove the law if he is elected, Howard will again try to steel the limelight, and revoke the law before the up and comming federal election.

He has done with with everything else Latham has promised.

Third of Nine

Re:Write to your MP here

[mister_tim]

I don't know about all MPs, but Government Minister's pay the same attention to emails as to snail mail letters. Some will reply by email, some will reply by snail mail (if you include your address).

However, the same attention, in this context, means that they generally forward it to the Minister responsible for that matter or, if they are the Minister responsible, they get their Department to answer it - or their political staff if it's a purely political matter (as opposed to a policy issue).

However, it still pays to write sometimes. If there's enough opposition from enough sources, it can make an imapct. Even better than writing letters would be to get the story picked up in various newspapers. Sadly enough, politicians are more worried about negative press on the front page of the Australian or the SMH than they are about negative comments in any number of letters sent to them.

Re:Copyright has gotten out of control

[afidel]

Bullshit, read the constitution again, it clearly states

" To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

It says nothing about profits, it says that in exchange for promoting these things which we feel are valuable to society we will allow you to have controll of your works for a limited time.

Tasmania and Sen Brian Haradine

[CypherOz]

Tasmania (a state of .au) has Senator Brian Haradine. Haradine has pushed for Govt subsidised Internet in the economically depressed town of Launceton in Tasmania with the provision that the ADSL roll out in that area have content filtering. Haradine's justification is the "protection of children from pornography", which of itself is a good thing - his implementraion method has huge free speach implications. This is how .au politicians think - they need some tech education. Any of these type of laws, no matter how well intended, reduce our basic freedoms. The FTA has many benefits for both .au and .us; but some of the bagage like the DMCA are really really bad and driven by very commercial interests.

Re:Tasmania and Sen Brian Haradine

[Chuq]

Town? City of 100,000. 12th biggest in the country. (Obligitary USA comparison: The rank compares with San Francisco CA, or Jacksonville FL; as a percentage of national population it compares with Philadephia PA or Pheonix AZ; the actual population with Athens GA, Green Bay WI or Burbank CA) But anyway...

The LBP was more a political stunt (the electorate of Bass was a marginal seat, with 30-40 votes difference).

All that the LBP (Launceston Broadband Project) did was give you a discount of A$38.50 per month on your ADSL. It was great when it first started and the only provider was Telstra (A$80-90 for 3Gb) and we got it at A$55. (cheap at the time).
Then Telstra opened it up to resellers, but at shocking rates, so that the other resellers had to charge (say) $150 for 1Gb.
Then Telstra had to change their rates, so other providers could provider it more affordably, 3Gb for $70 or 10Gb for $100 were common prices. But the LBP changed their rules then... you had to use Telstra! (Since then, ADSL had got considerably more affordable, though Telstra has remained just as pathetic)

LBP also provided you with another ADSL account, which was like a private internet, just gave you access to local servers (file mirrors, and local events, such as concerts at the Uni etc were webcast). Unlimited traffic. Good concept.. but you had to disconnect from the internet to connect to the LBP. Completely fucking useless. Why not just provide the content on the internet itself, and make it free traffic for LBP users!

Not a single bit of internet filtering happened at all.

Anyway, not much to do with DMCA, but a rant nevertheless!

Re:Tasmania and Sen Brian Haradine

[mcbridematt]

More info at http://www.libertus.net/censor/know.html#bh.

I get sick of listening to that tard on parliament broadcasts.

so... are we already fucked up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Chile, a FTA is now in effect with the US (I don't have a link to the actual text, this is only a draft).

So that means that we are fucked up, and we can do nothing about it, right?

-copyright: life + 70
-encourage that circunvention of access control be criminally punished.
-recognize patents to anything, whether a product or process, in all fields of technology.

:(

Howard is against DMCA

[JazzXP]

I read in "The Australian" (local newspaper) that John Howard is agains the DMCA, partially because it holds back innovation.... hopefully that counts for something.

Project Gutenberg of Australia

[motek]

Project Gutenberg of Australia ( http://gutenberg.net.au/ ), as I understand, would also be affected by the new law. In particular, this notable ans useful page: http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html could be no more.

-m-

Who to contact

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparantly it has been refered to a senate standing committe. To make a submission send an email to jsct@aph.gov.au or snail mail

The Secretary
Joint Standing Committee on Treaties
R1-109
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

I got this info from my friendly local MP's staffer.

Re:Who to contact

[TekPolitik]

The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is not a Senate committee - it is a "joint" committee, meaning it has members from both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Joint Committee's submissions period is over (finished on the 13th). Submissions made to that Committee now are unlikely to be considered at all.

There is also an ad-hoc Senate committee for the FTA. Its submissions period ends on the 30th. This is where you can make submissions now. Since it is the Senate that will ultimately decide whether the FTA requirements are implemented, that is where the submissions can have the greatest effect. The Joint Committee's report is most likely to be a rubber stamp.

DVD zoning - what a joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an Australian, and up until now I've taken heart in the way that the ACCC has stood up for the idea of region-free DVD players.

Let me give you an example. I have a friend from mainland China (region 6), who studies here in Australia (region 4), who has a number of mutual Taiwanese friends (region 3), and is also studying Japanese (region 2). She bought a laptop last year, hoping to be able to watch DVDs on it, and was upset to find that 5 changes to the region would *lock* the hardware.

Whilst the ACCC supports region-free players, it can't mandate that player be manufactured this way, so most drives in laptops come with this ridiculous control imposed.

My friend essentially can't watch DVDs from different regions which are of cultural interest to her (good luck getting the latest Japanese CDs in Queensland!) Before you go saying, "well, most DVDs in Taiwan are cracked and don't have region restrictions", realise that that's not what I'm talking about. If we were to follow the 'rules' originally designed for DVDs, and laid out in the FTA, then my friend would have to buy 4 DVD drives, just so that she could watch DVDs from the different regions she's likely to be interested in, and come across.

So, when I patch my laptop drive (no patch was available for my friend's drive last time I checked) or rip the DVDs which I bought in Taiwan, I'm not doing so to 'circumvent copyright', I'm doing so for fair use, so I can watch the damned things!

In the modern world (particularly where Australia is situated) the idea of zones makes no sense. When I can hop on a plane and be in Taiwan in 8 hours, why should my player stop being able to play local DVDs, based on some completely arbitary regime?

It mightn't be a problem for citizens of the US - region 1 (sorry, but how typical!) covers: USA, Canada, U.S. Territories - this probably covers all the DVDs that US citizens would be interested in...

Submit to the FTA Senate Committee!

[femto]

An Australian senate committee has been set up to inquire into the effects of the Free Trade Agreement. Submissions are open until April 30th. This is an opportunity to voice opposition to copyright extensions, and extensions to patents and 'DMCA issues' and be heard.

Submissions may be emailed to: FTA@aph.gov.au

More details are on the web page: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/freetrade_c tte/

These submissions do make a difference (I submitted to a previous inquiry on broadband access). This is an opportunity for us to put a point view forward. It is hard for an inquiry to draw a conclusion contrary to the majority of submissions (or for the government to ignore the results of such an inquiry).

In addition, results are usually published, forming a permanent record of opposition.

Also, check out the 'copyrightaustralia' yahoo group and an associated web page. Regards

Re:Write to my MP

[vlchung]

An alternative would be to write to whoever was the lowest ranking Senator on the Liberal Party NSW Senate ticket - that is, the Liberal senator who only just managed to scrape in 2 elections ago (who will be up for reelection this election - only half the senate is up for grabs each election, assuming no double dissolution stuff happening).

S/he would be very sensitive to a couple of thousand people in NSW adjusting their Senate preferences even a little bit. Perhaps indicate (if you are otherwise a coalition supporter) that you will preference them ahead of their opposition, but still move them further down your preference list - this way they can't simply disengage from dialog with you on the basis that "they wouldn't vote for the coalition anyway, so why bother?".

Re:What do you expect from a bunch of ex-cons

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful, but not accurate. Australia received a total of about 160,000 convicts in all - three times as many as the North American colonies.

They were required for labour, because the Brits had outlawed slavery.

The practice of transportation didn't stop until the gold rushes made Australia a highly desirable place to be. After that, sending people here as punishment looked a bit goofy.

Your knowledge of history is lacking

[B.D.Mills]

Technically, the country of Australia was never a penal colony. The colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) were penal colonies, but stopped accepting convicts well before Australia was federated in 1901.

Americans who like to mention that Australia was a penal colony seem to forget that Georgia was also a penal colony, and also don't seem to know that the number of Americans presently imprisoned in the US is far greater than the number of convicts that were ever shipped to Australia.

Re:Actually, it does...

[cpt kangarooski]

In fact, it does NOT say "the exclusive right to profit from" and you're more than welcome to look the damn thing up. There's a copy here if you like.

Re:Alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all a big joke. Don't you see it? The editors finally got to put "/." in a headline!