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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."
this report and ask the same question:
Who would profit from legalizing software patents, the American or the European software industry?
Lenz Blog
... and that they might have something to gain from it. Most big news outlets are owned by companies that also make/sell movies, music, or other media covered under copyright law that would be worth protecting overseas (your nightly news really doesn't matter in that respect.) Now, it's quite possible that because it's not an inconvenience to them, it simply didn't interest them (and they figured you wouldn't care either.) If this were very much not in their own best interest, they could easily blow it into a "big deal" everyone would suddenly mildly care about (as much as anybody seems to care about anything these days -- oh, wait, has that been true for all of history? Oh.)
And ask this question:
Who are the persons authoring and adopting this treaty getting kickbacks from, American or Australian industry?
Correct! It is indeed enforcement of IPRs. Parking meters on a grand scale.
Of what benefit to Australia is:
- opening their markets to the biggest property-rights sharks in the world?
- joining their markets to those of a country whose income is earned not so much from innovation or production as from milking them both?
- Moving their laws towards those of a country already neck-deep in litigation?
- Opening their markets to a huge producer of Australian staples like wheat?
From an Australian perspective, she's a no make sense.At all.
So why is it going ahead regardless?
Enquiring Aussies want to know.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Not to mention the fact that due to all the subsidies to sugar, Australia would be better off paying the sugar farmers to do nothing rather than grow sugar.
Rubbish. This affects us all, unless you happen to live under a rock with no TV, radio, internet, etc. If nothing else, ordinary people become criminals under legislation required by the FTA - do you really need more justification?
I think its pretty obvious that the US needs a separation of Industry and State the way they separated church and state.
The DMCA just a symptom.
But it hasn't happened yet.
The appropriate legislation needs to be passed in BOTH countries. Even if the US passes their side of the deal, they need the Australian senate to pass theirs too.
And if you live in Australia, you know that's far from a sure thing, and Peter Garrett is not going to make it any surer.
There's still time to stop it.
That Helen Clark, our PM of New Zealand actually stood up to the US Governments bulling tactics and lost the chance for a free-trade agreement with the US. Looks like it wouldn't have been much of a benefit anyway...
...there isn't really any such thing as "independant countries"; the truth is that we're all obviously incapable of making our own laws, and making our own decisions as to what's legally, socially and morally right. All countries should be begging the US to strongarm them, er, I mean help them to make changes to their laws. After all, the US is the perfect model to base a country on, putting it's most important members (corporations) first, leaving the little guy to fend for himself. We can only hope that in coming years this planet of ours will cease to be known as "Earth" with all of it's different and unique cultures, and come to be known as "America - Planet of Legally Encumbered Thought and Filty Rich Lawyers".
But seriously, I'm rather miffed at the whole superiority stance the US seems to have in regards to other countries, including Australia.
The most insulting part is slipping this into a "Free Trade" agreement... just what the h*ll did we get out of this, anyway? We already lag behind the US in terms of the concept of Free Use (it's illegal to, say, tape an episode off the TV to watch later over here). I remember reading part of the FTA, and it said the aim of the IP section was to bring the IP laws of Australia and the US together. But instead of getting this, we're just being shafted with all the nasty horrible laws that would make big US businesses the most money.
Do we have the words "51st state" plastered somewhere we can't see? (John Howard walks past with arm around cardboard cutout of George Bush)
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
I agree.
I doubt more than about 5% of Americans don't even know what Region Coding is, and expect a DVD/Game disc/whatever to work where ever they are in the world, regardless of where it was purchased. The percentages are probably about the same with respect to power outlets (like 110v/50hz vs 240v/60hz) and the different video systems (like PAL vs NTSC).
People who live in the rest of the world are very conscious of the differences, it just seems that the US couldn't care less.
And strangely enough we still seem to get away with saying more than our American counterparts...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
"An examination of some of the shortcomings of a trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia does not effect most people directly."
Of course it does, and the IP law parts of it certainly affect them a hell of a lot more than the provisions about sugar, for example, which have had the bulk of the coverage in the media including incessant front pages for several weeks a few months ago.
The problem is people are too lazy to try to understand the finer details, even when they are very important details. On top of which, there is only a very weak consumer advocacy movement in Australia, there is no Nader-type crusader to draw attention to such issues, and only a few interest groups (Electronic Frontiers Australia being one, but they never seem to get any media play).
People with your attitude are actually the problem. We are going to trade away our own laws, developed over hundreds of years through the British common law and then locally since federation, in exchange for the lowering of a few tariffs on manufactured goods, and you think its 'boring' to have to think about it.
Read Pynchon.
They don't make the laws, they just use them in their client's interests.
Blame the politicians, who write the laws. Most of all, BLAME YOURSELF for letting the politicians write the laws without fear of retribution from you, the voter. Australians should stop whining about how other people are responsible for the ills in their country, get of their backsides and DO something about it. Politicians are affected by the public, believe it or not. If enough backbench Coalition MPs get enough letters and complaints from their constituents, they will start piling the pressure on Howard to back out of the deal while he still can. Look at the amount of noise the sugar farmers managed to make - other Australians could make just as much of a fuss about other parts of the deal.
Yes, IAAL, an Australian one too. I will not benefit from all of Australia's IP being hauled off in a big boat to the US any more than you will.
Read Pynchon.
What's the most ironic is how many argue that poorer countries are hurt by free trade. So many protesters at every WTO meeting claim that they are protecting those in third-world countries. If you want to force poor companies in poor countries with poor people to compete under the same labor laws as rich companies in rich countries immediately, you'll never get anywhere. As money flows into poor countries through trade, the standard of living rises and labor laws gradually conform to industrialized standards. Also, when protectionists cry out about workers in developed countries losing jobs, and how terrible their lives have become, let's remember that this job went to someone much poorer. If the worker in a developing country who got the job hadn't gotten it, he/she would be in far worse shape than his/her wealthier counterpart.
Anyways, I put in my pro-globalization ten cents. Free trade is important, and if there are little imperfections we don't like we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem that this sig is too small to contain.
All of that stuff we can already get cheaper from Asia. Hardly any of these "American" branded products, except the cars, which you're welcome to, are actually manufactured there now. For instance there isn't a single Levi jeans factory in the US now. If you buy from a multi-national like that they ship it direct from their third world factory. US trade laws are irrelevant.
"Globalization is the future and history has shown that over the long-run, it's always beneficial to everyone." - Playing fields are never level, markets are never free, and the ref is always biased.
"As money flows into poor countries through trade..." - If money flows into... this is not a given.
The FTA is all about corporations, not people. Call me strange (or just idealistic), but I believe the governments obligation is to the citizens foremost (those who actually elect them), and not the corporations (who buy the decisions they want).
I would recommend reading a few of the dissertations upon FTAs:
Helleiner, Gerald. 1993. The Political Economy of North American Free Trade. New York and Montreal: St. Martin's Press and McGill-Queen's.
Gerry Helleiner [Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto, and a Canadian development economist actively involved with economic development policy in Latin America and Africa for many years] is fairly critical about Mexico and NAFTA. He argues that NAFTA implies "Mexican policy disarmament" [p.46], and that Mexico [a small country] would do better to bargain multilaterally through the GATT process than through bilateral bargaining over US-Mexico free trade given the asymmetric relationship between the US and Mexico. The impacts of Mexico joining NAFTA or a US-Mexico FTA on Mexico's relationships with Latin America are also seen as problematic. (My emphasis). There are many other examples of the larger economic power (ahem) flexing it's muscle to force issues to the detriment of the FTA partners.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
In addition, there's a profound debate that's been ongoing, pretty much since the Vietnam war, within the Labor Party about America and Australia's relationship with it. The details of the whys and wherefores of this are arcane and largely irrelevant; however, there remains a suspicion in the electorate that Labor is incapable of keeping "the Yanks" committed to Australia's security.
Now, I happen to think this view is bogus, and leads to counterproductive Australian subservience. But you have to understand the fear that we'll be abandoned that resides in some parts of the Australian electorate.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It doesn't matter that the major concessions are all held out as mere possibilitites to be reconsidered in eighteen years (I'm not joking there either), they can still argue that something was acheived on that front. The disadvantages to primary production hurt the minor party in the coalition, but the minor party has been told to take it or leave it - and the constituants of the major party are mostly convinced that investment of any kind is good, since Australia is just coming out of a major property boom with little negative consequence.
Australian govenment makes little sense currently until you consider that every state governemt is held by a party the Federal government hates intensely, so health and education become issues to withold payment and embarress the states and law enforcement is something done by the states (apart from new anti-terror laws, until recently enforced five days a week). So it's things like trade deals, immigration and military action where the federal government can do something visable to the general public. This trade deal is big news, and so long as it is big and complex enough it doesn't matter if it works, it will show the people the government is doing something to make things better. It's like putting face-recognition systems in airports, it doesn't matter that the cutting-edge research still has a way to go before it works - spending X million on something with the right name show the voters that you care enough to try from a certain perspective.
In pure dollar amounts you may be right, however it is still not a good trade because it will undermine incentives to develop IP and content at home. The Australian cinema you love will be even more challenged than it is now, and our beleagered research and IT sectors will suffer some more. Did you know that 96% of movies released in Australia come from Hollywood? The 4% remaining are for the rest of the world, including Australian cinema. Talk about cultural hegemony.
What this FTA is likely to do is play up our export strengths which are in the commodities business (primary resources) and undermine our weaknesses further (intellectual content). However commodities are relatively low-value, finite, volatile and not under our control (Australia doesn't get to set the price of coal for example). It might turn out OK, it may not ; conversely unique intellectual content is high-value, well protected, renewable and much more under control.
In the future we want to rely more on the former and less on the latter. The FTA is not going in this direction and this is dangerous.
Again, this is rubbish (we have quite adequate defences against conventional threats), but some people still think it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
we hate Howard. He's a fuckwit whose so far up Bush's ass that he will do ANYTHING Bush says too. We went to war because Howard was too scared to say no to Bush. We allowed Australian citizens to be illegally detained by America because Howard was too scared to stand up to Bush. Now we're going to get screwed over with this trade agreement because Howards is too scared to say no to Bush.
When will it end?
What I meant was that the recruitment of somebody like Peter Garrett can't be seen as a favourable sign for the FTA. His primary use at the moment for the ALP is as a sign of the leadership direction. After all, he can't do much until he's elected.
The direction certainly points towards a more discerning set of trade and foriegn policys, and the FTA is definately not a good example of that sort of attitude.
Offtopic, I find the idea of him as a possible future Environment Minister to be quite appealing - rarely do competant people with knowlege in the area get that portfolio - although I'm sure there are quite a few industry and union groups that might think otherwise. He seemed pretty tame enough though when Kerry O'Brien interviewed him.
Who knows, maybe he'll come up with a replacement for "It's Time!"!
In moderate and conservative Australia the majority of folks seem to believe that Indonesia wants to invade us. But why? (Hell if my next door neighbour was John Howard I would want to jump the fence an snot the little prick).
The Keating and Hawke governments had the right idea of actaully forming relationships both diplomatic and economic with our northern neighbours. After all these are the people who live in our region! Well we should say contempory Australia lives in their region after all just over 200 years ago this country was actually invaded by the colonial British and all the indigenous peoples of this nation we basically wiped out. The only people in this country who have anything to fear today are refugees (who get put in concentration camps in the desert) and Indgenous Australian's who through government legislation always get the raw end of the stick!
As for the US and its free trade agreement Bush can stick it were the sun don't shine!
and a bastardization of the language. Free trade means free trade.
The following is a real free trade agreement:
"Country A and Country B agree to free trade across their borders."
Done.
Anything else is not free trade, and is thus a sham.