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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
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?
It is entirely understandable that the mainstream media did not give this issue much attention. It really is a small thing. An examination of some of the shortcomings of a trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia does not effect most people directly.
_____
Thank you.
America... the land of the free (hence the intellectual thought police), and the home of brave (hence the amount of security in the US). What went wrong?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
We heard plenty of coverage about the agreement, but most of it was complaining from Sugar farmers......
Advanced users are users too!
That's not a Free Trade Agreement,
[pulls out big piece of paper] THIS is a Free Trade Agreement.
What is apparent is that Australia did not get the big gains in access to US agriculture it was asking for, but still agreed to some serious changes to Australian social policies which the US was demanding. While the agreement - unlike the North American Free Trade Agreement - will not allow corporations to sue the government for breaches of the agreement, it will mean restrictions on the right of Australia to regulate local content in the media, changes to Australian quarantine laws, new avenues for US pharmaceutical companies to press for greater profits from the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme, and greater restrictions on creative products under copyright.
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
except for lawyers.
The point of free trade agreements should be to open avenues of exchange, and not just of goods, but of services, ideas and the like.
If the only winners are lawyers and political kudos then it ain't really a unilateral open and honest FTA.
Maybe I just hanker back for the time of cooperation and backscratching that was the early days of the internet instead of the $$make money fast$$ and backstabbing that seems to goes on now.
It will be interesting to see how many Australian companies incorporate separate R&D subsiduaries in New Zealand or Vanuatu etc to protect themselves against the much more matured and voracious legal 'profession' in the US chasing 'possible' IPR infringements (most of which I'd assume would be to financially cripple competition instead of really protecting IPRs).
btw, what, if any, has been the Canadian experience with this - and can any parallels be drawn (or lessons learnt).
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
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.
what do you mean it doesn't "effect most people directly"?
a consumers rights being limited - how direct can you get?
[too lazy to deliver more substantiating examples]
i believe the reply to your statement to be far more accurate.
why would the interest holders critically report, what they desire?
having said that, i believe (speculatively) that in the editors room the same argument was used, to kill off a journos report on the subject! i just wonder how they might have responded.....
If Only Johnny howard and the rest of our wonderful government had some balls and decided to stop arse licking dubya et. al
but i guess we would miss out on things such as this 'free' trade agreement,
fear and the 'forever threat' of terrorism as a political point scorer
iraq
not to mention an american administration and its embassy commenting on our domestic issues (read labour party)
would be nice if our sovereignty was respected and little johhny had some kahunas to protect it.
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.
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
Just another step closer.
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...
As an Australian I despair that none of our elected reps can do anything other than present their rectums for pounding by America.
...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. --
Also, send letters and sign the petition.
Please help.
Rusty.
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.
Here in Peru, the government is currently in the middle of negotiations regarding our own US-Peru free trade agreement. There's a lot of hype about it, most people consider it to be the great economic panacea which will solve most of our terrible economic problems, and the one instrument which may single-handedly bring us out of underdevelopment. I say 'Ha!', but I don't think they really care about my opinion.
Anyway, mainstream media is nothing but sugar talk for the FTA, and have hardly noticed all of the fine print, especially regarding "enhancements" on our IP law, or other areas of our Constitution - essentially opening wide for foreign investment without any kind of protection for our inner markets.
So, to the point, as a sort of mini Ask Slashdot: how would you go about publicizing these little known issues, particularly the IP one, especially when most of the mainstream media just tries to shush any voices that are just not complying with their views? These are legitimate issues which could very possibly rally valuable support, yet none of it is being mentioned, anywhere, just the positive aspects of the agreement are publicized, particularly by the government. As far as I know, similar issues are popping all through Latin America, perhaps even other places. I would certainly appreciate any insight from Australians who've just went through this, or anybody else with similar experiences, which we may possibly adapt to our local scenarios.
http://castorexmachina.wordpress.com - Filosofía, tecnología y cultura.
What worries me is that there has been little public debate or community consultation about the free trade agreement. Such a bilateral trade negotiation places Australia in a very weak bargaining position given the relative sizes of the US and Australian economies.
What worries the Australian population is that the terms of the FTA will be unacceptable in regards to the Australian culture, health and safety, public interest and economic independence.
Makes me wonder who the government on both ends of the deal was looking out for. The best interests of the political system? Or the best interests of the people?
Trust me, if it's anything like the Australian offer YOU DON'T WANT IT.
Unless you want to be sued over the name 'Maple Syrup' until you acknowledge (a) that it is the eternal copyright of Disney-Time-Warner-General-Motors-Northrop Manufacturing Concern Inc. New York and (b) that the Canadian syrup will be marked 'Imitation UnAmerican Syrup Substitute.'
We are currently having to ridiculous disputes with the US over brand names. One is over the name 'Dockers', which is a football team here named after dock workers (the team is based in a port city). They have been sued by the US clothing company Dockers for selling football tops under the name 'Dockers,' because Dockers USA holds the trademark for clothing of that name.
The second is over the name 'ugg boots', which has been the traditional name for sheepskin boots in Australia since time immemorial, and has now been trademarked by some American jerk company who is tring to prohibit us from using it.
It all reminds me of the crazy Italians, who are trying to go around the world banning people from using the name 'Italian Food' or 'Italian Restaurant' unless they certify the business in question is acceptably Italian according to their standards of Italian-ness. At some point there should be boundaries between countries that still count for something...
Read Pynchon.
However, I am in somewhat of a quandary as to where I should redirect my vote. I'm tempted by Labor for the first time ever - Latham has made their economic policies much more palatable. 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. The Greens and Democrats have way too many wackos to even be a consideration.
Damn, where's a responsible voter supposed to go ?
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.
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
To summarise:
Well that just sounds wonderfull...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Well actually it has. The Copyright (Digital Agenda) Amendment Act 2000, inserted DMCA like provisions into out copyright law. This was to done fullfill our obligations under TRIPS (the WTO intellectual property provisions).
As far as copyright law the only major impact I can see is the longer duration of protection, in line with the Sony Bono Act. But really, the more onerous provisions are already part of our law.
Interestingly the FTA doesn't seem to be extending the exceptions of Australian copyright law to match the relatively generous 'fair use' provisions our American cousins enjoy. Wonder why that is?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
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?)
Being an Australian resident and being particularly keen on seeing a developing Australian industry I have three questions I would like to ask:
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.
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?)
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.
ok, it seems some people still dont get it. "Why does john howard not do whats best for australians?" type thing. Easy, the global elite of the rich and powerful have banded together to rule the world. They like you to think that they are looking after the local interests, but they are not. Howard, Bush, Blair and the like are all on the same team. It is all us workers around that have to team up against them. I'm for globalization - globalization of worker solidarity. Power to the workers and peasants world wide! UNITE!
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?
This is only going to hurt any Australians that have actually devoloped something, then twenty years down the track the bloody "yanks" are going to steal it then patent it and we won't have a leg to stand on!!!!! Message to the yanks: Stop Stealing. First you steal the Name Ugg Boots, what next.
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.
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).