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

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.

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: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.