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Australia-US Free Trade Agreement Examined
PeterBecker writes "An evalutation of the impact of the changes Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement is available from the Australian Parliamentary Library (Research Paper #14). It takes a very critical stance, with statements such as "IPRs fit awkwardly in an agreement that has the aim of advancing free trade." and "While there has not been a comprehensive economic evaluation of IPRs, the Productivity Commission has found that, as a net importer of IPRs, Australia would lose more than it gains by strengthening IPRs. The net economic impact is thus likely to be negative.". Interesting read especially for those of you who might be affected but missed the fact thanks to close to no coverage in the mainstream media."
Thanks to the free trade agreement, Australia is now likely to get DMCA-like laws.
Our copyright law is already strict - we aren't allowed to copy a CD that you own to tape to listen on a walkman or in the car and we have no "fair use" copying for backup purpose. Now add the DMCA.
Tack on to this the extension to the copyright period for most works approaching 90 years and we have to ask ourselves, was this "free trade" agreement worth trading in our reasonable copyright law in exchange for selling some more sugar, wheat and wool in the US market?
We heard plenty of coverage about the agreement, but most of it was complaining from Sugar farmers......
Advanced users are users too!
I recently attended The US-Australia Free Trade Agreement and Intellectual Property - A Symposium which was hosted by the Baker & McKenzie Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, UNSW Law Faculty. You can find the transcript here, and mp3 sound files here, here, and here. It was a most interesting presentation, although in some ways I think it missed important 'features' of the FTA. Features which affect us all like most of Chapter 17, especially the introduction of DMCA like laws. More time was spent discussing mostly irrelevant issues like the 'protection' of information that may otherwise be cached by ISPs. The site is a good resource nonetheless - it's just unfortunate that people don't know what's good for them and are more interested in irrelevant news than items which will actually make a difference to them.
Well from an Australian perspective this looks bad but it would have been possible to turn it to our advantage. A tightening of IP rights would hurt us in that we seem ot rely on importing IP because the government here is intent on pumping all the funding into primary industry. It is hard to get government assistance and funding for any business that trades in tertiary and secondary industry as the government has this insane idea (founded on our traditions) that the way forward in Australia is still "riding on the sheep's back".
However, Australia is one of the top countries in the world for education and literacy. For research purposes in Software Engineering we have 2 of the top 15 universities in one city (Melbourne). If the government were to change their ideas of what Australian business is and what our exposts should be we could become a net exporter of IP. Currently we are a net exporter of tertiary education.
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
Also, send letters and sign the petition.
Please help.
Rusty.
As an American, I'd say that other countries have a damned good reason to be anti-American right now - I know I sure do!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Do it the way it's worked since forever: copy a big stack of flyers, and pass them out to everyone you see while yelling about your views on the issues.
Just do it on a busy streetcorner or market or mall (I don't know what you have in Peru, sorry) instead of Slashdot - we already agree with you (and can't vote in Peru anyway)!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Perhaps. Going off the current figures from www.aph.gov.au, the current scoreboard is:
x .htm
Government (Liberal & National) 34
Labour 28
Democrats 7
Greens 2
Progressive Alliance (Meg Lees) 1
One Nation (Len Harris) 1
Independants (Harradine & Murphy) 2
---
Total 75
+ Casting vote of senate president (Lib)
The ALP currently look unlikely to vote for the FTA. The Democrats and Greens I believe have both stated they don't plan to vote for it either. This leaves the government *requiring* the four votes left:
Lees (South Australia)
Harris (Queensland)
Harradine (Tasmania)
Murphy (Tasmania)
Harris *might*, but One Nation didn't like things like this previously, so he's iffy. Lees... was a Democrat once, but who knows now. And the two independants are also questionable.
The odds are against it at the moment, but a few letters to senators can't hurt:
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/senators/inde
Sounds more like a vote-winner to me. Being pro-American just dragged us into Iraq, got us bombed in Bali and generally hated almost as much as the Yanks in the Muslim coiuntries in SE Asia. Does anyone remember Harold "All the way with LBJ" Holt as he led us into the Vietnam War on America's coattails.
To summarise:
Well that just sounds wonderfull...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Why can't Australia be committed to Australia's security?
Because most of our experienced troops are in Iraq and the Solomon Islands, and half of our elite SAS soldiers quit upon returning from Iraq, and joined "private security firms".
Most of the economic analysis done seems to suggest that the benefits to Australia will be minimal.
In any case, the deal as it stands will lead to the long term death of the PBS (for the benefit of the non-Aussies, a scheme we have to provide cheap access to prescription drugs), and there's little chance of the enabling legislation getting through the Senate if that's going to be the consequence.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It could have been a lot worse, but as it is it is still a scam conconcted as a confidence trick. It still leaves the Australian negotiators with something since they have delivered what they came to get in name. The recent very close military alliance between Australia and the USA has made the Australian government incapable of saying no to anything the USA asks, and this supposed reward of the free trade agreement for help in Afganistan, Iraq and in the UN has backfired.
The US went in for the weapons, for revenge for 911, for niger uranium and for whatever an old wrestler was thinking - we just went in for the cash reward.
Yes, free trade is great.
But, as many people have pointed out, there's not much freeing in the agreement, in the sense of eliminating barriers to trade. Don't be fooled by the name.
What it does do, especially in areas like Chapter 17, is offer US companies the same protections here as it does in the US.
Hope that clarifies,
Rusty.
However, on the other hand he's absolutely set in withdrawing our commitment in Iraq, something I think would be a very bad idea at this point
You think wrong. Vote ALP.
Have a look further down the main page of this story. There is a comment about the National Economics study that was just released. It shows a massive negative impact.
At best, there will be a minor improvement for some cattle imports in 15 years. The rest of the economy gets shafted.
The US is probably the worst trade partner in the world to deal with.
But not being from either .au or .us, I won't comment this further; instead I'll give an example from my area, that is the EU. They are supposedly support free trade, and it does show to an extent - within the EU it's very easy for an individual or a company to order goods from another member state. And there is a point to using Euros, it naturally helps tourism but it's especially good for small businesses that rely on importing goods. Exchange fluctuations aren't an issue if you happen to have a large cash reserve or are able to get a loan easily; not the case with many small shops.
So everything is well and good in Euroland? Nope. One major point (there are several others, just as an example) is agriculture. Member states support their local farmers a lot, while imposing severe import taxes to products coming from third world countries - agricultural products being one of their main export. Naturally the products are eventually sold in the union, and the prices are quite high too. But a large part of the sales go to the union, with mandatory VAT and that import tax. The producing countries get very little.
Now, since there isn't a free trade agreement between EU and it's African counterpart (I know there isn't (yet) an African Union as such, but it seems the policies are set on a continental level), this behaviour is within the right of the EU, although it's constantly protested in the WTO. But I find it infuriating that such a vocal supporter of free trade supports it only when it's in their interests.
Which brings me to the point, instead of free trade we should be aiming to fair trade. We give corporations a status of an individual, i.e. a corporation can own property and has to pay taxes, yet it seems that they don't have to obey the same laws that we do. Naturally the purpose of the corporation is to make profit, yes, that's the last part after '???'. Currently it seems that ??? == exploit your surroundings as much as you can. IMHO it should be more along the lines of ??? == do your business with fairness in mind. Third world countries are very poor; duh, we're keeping them that way. While it's obvious that when we employ people there they don't get the same wage as in the western world, I'm sure they could use a bit more. I'm sure they'd appreciate being able to do trade with less taxes, thus helping create an economy of their own instead of having to rely on international support and foreign companies.
But who am I kidding, this wouldn't happen even with severe governmental regulation. To do something like this would be against our very nature, and that's something that regulation just can't change. So I'll just end my rant by rasing a toast. Here's to my future job going to Estonia (the Finnish alternative for Mexico).