Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australia to Get Software Patents and Anti-Circumvention Laws

Posted by michael on from the crikey dept.

Marlor writes "Australia's main opposition party have just confirmed that they will be supporting the Free Trade Agreement with the USA. This means that Australia will be adopting DMCA-style laws and Software Patents in the name of 'harmonizing IP laws with the USA', despite consistent lobbying against them. Matters are made worse by the fact that, unlike Americans, Australians are not protected by 'fair use' provisions." Odd that 'harmonizing' is always in one direction - for some reason, no one ever wants to decrease IP regulation to harmonize with some other country.

3 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You are too optimistic by dgatwood · · Score: 1, Flamebait
    No, now we force other countries' children to work 16-hour days in cotton mills and coal mines....

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  2. Re:It's not odd! by TeraCo · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Holy shit, are you retarded? The socialist alliance are the ones who protest the stock exchange because they don't take everyone's money [which for the most part belongs to retirees] and use it to feed the homeless and stuff like that.

    Pretty much every single policy they make shows the fact that they have absolutely no idea how the world works.

    Also, the Greens are now not offering preferences to the Labor party, since they supported the FTA. Which is great, because I'm damned if I want the Labor party being held hostage by a bunch of extremists any time they feel like making a demand.

    --
    Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
  3. Re:It's not odd! by vandan · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    The vast majority of the stock in Australia is owned by retirees, the average person like you and I.


    Got some links to prove that? I think you'll find that, like everywhere else, the vast majority of stock is not owned by 'the average person' via retirement funds, but is in fact owned by a very small percentage of the population. What were the figures ... 90% of the wealth being owned by 1% of the population? Which 'average person' were you referring to? Many of the people who do own stick through retirement funds will never see the money because the stock will have dried up by the time they retire. This is already happening in the US - many large superannuation funds are simply disappearing, leaving 'the average person' with nothing .

    Also, forced investment in the stock exchange doesn't change the fact that the stock exchange is fundamentally flawed with respect to the way that it affect resource allocation. There are better ways to decide what to do with our resources. For example we could have a more democratic method of resource allocation. That would scare the stock brokers, I'm sure...

    As for your comment about the Greens policies, I simply don't care enough to do any serious research into their problems.


    Exactly. Typical neo-conservative apoligist. Full of praise for the stock markets and finanicial institutions, and devoid of any knowledge of what the growing opposition to them is saying. Stick your head back in the sand, and remember to keep buying McDonalds, watching Fox News, deriding the refugees, voting for fucking Howard and waving the American flag when Baby Bush comes back into town.