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Australia to Get Software Patents and Anti-Circumvention Laws
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.
The opposition has attached two non-negotiable conditions to their support of the "Free" Trade Agreement legislation. The government has said will not agree to one of these conditions. This might delay the passage of the legislation until after the next election, by which time the balance of power could have changed and the legislation can be considered on its merits instead of political manoeuvring. If the deadlock is never resolved the legislation might die a natural death.
Of course the other option is actually put in some effort to demonstrate your opposition to the FTA. The Greens party in Australia have consistently been against the FTA. The Aust. Labour party courts them for directing voting preferences to the ALP. How about supporting them, or writing to your local newspaper, calling your local politician and writing to Latham, leader of the ALP?
Remember, no vote has been cast yet and there are two significant conditions placed on the adoption of the FTA by the ALP before they vote for it, so it's not too late to visit the anti-FTA sites nofta.org and tradewatchoz.or.
The FTAA - similar deal, but relating to the Americas, scheduled to be signed on early 2005, has a prevision for DMCA like anti-circunvention law requirements by all parties.
It, however, states that "Computer Programs" are not subject to patenteability.
It is on chapter XX of the third draft for the FTAA. Subsection B.2.c (Copyright and related rights), articles 21, 22, 23 contain the DMCAish stuff. Patents are described further bellow.
-><- no
The FTA has not passed the Australian senate, and
_ __
most likely will not be ratified until after this
year's Australian federal elections.
The hold-up is being caused by the major opposition
party in Australia not agreeing to terms set forward
by Americans regarding the fedral acquisition and
subsidies of pharmaceuticals.
Hopefully this sticking point will render the FTA
void and hence stop any further destruction of the
Australian patent and intellectual property laws
Arash Partow
_______________________________________________
Be one who knows what they don't know,
Instead of being one who knows not what they don't know,
Thinking they know everything about all things.
http://www.partow.net
Arash Partow's Philosophy: Be a person who knows what they don't know, and not a person who doesn't know.
What makes you think the liberals have sold out any less than the conservatives ? It's not like Clinton signed the DMCA into law, or anything.
The vague hope lies in us somehow electing a third party or non-politician politician. We've got the same chance as a paper dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell.
--LordPixie
Sure they do. People quote copyrighted works and article excerpts all the time in Slashdot, and that is considered fair use for example.
I think that all Aussies with an interest in being able to use their computers unencumbered should really make their frustration over this deal known now. While it may be too late to stop the FTA, we still might be able to make a difference. Hopefully if we make enough noise the media and politicians will stop ignoring the IP aspects of the FTA.
So, start sending letters to newspapers. The FTA is a hot topic in the news right now, so there's a good chance it will be accepted (see letter second from the bottom).
You can send letters to the editor at the following addresses:
The Australian
Sydney Morning Herald
The Age
If US Slashdotters are keen, they could even send a "letter to the editor" detailing the problems with the DMCA and software patents that Australia will now face.
You can also let your feeling be known to the shadow minister for the Arts, Sport and Information Technology (Senator Kate Lundy). Her contact details are here. Be sure to mention that this issue will affect your vote.
You can also find out what electorate you are in, if you don't already know, and send your local federal MP a message about how disappointed you are over the FTA's impact on the IT industry.
While the timing of the posting of this story on Slashdot wasn't ideal (most Aussie Slashdotters won't be awake for another 5 or 6 hours), hopefully a reasonable number will read this in the morning and take action.
It's not like Clinton signed the DMCA into law, or anything.
Even if then-President Clinton didn't want the DMCA and the Bono Act to become law, he could not have stopped them, as both the House and the Senate passed the Bono Act and the DMCA by voice vote. Under the Constitution for the USA, a presidential veto has little if any hope of beating a voice vote, as it takes 81 percent in favor to pass a law by voice vote (that is, one-fifth to force a roll call) but only 67 percent to override a presidential veto.
The vague hope lies in us somehow electing a third party or non-politician politician.
What you want in this case is a member of a small-government party such as the Libertarian Party in the USA or a foreign counterpart. You might want to read the Cato Institute's position on copyrights and patents.
We've got the same chance as a paper dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell.
All political parties take time to get a foothold in government. To get more libertarians into an elected federal office, start at the level of the legislature.
Anyone know of a large island that is well connected to the Internet?
Niue might not be large (check the stats on CIA site), but it's beautiful and THE WHOLE AREA is covered by freely accessible Wi-Fi network. Plus - they have cool Net domain ".nu". Just think - GNU colony could have the website g.nu!
Like as if an average citizen knows what DMCA, DRM, software patent, FOSS, etc. are.
Right. But they do know that they can share their printed books but not their e-books. They, however, blame the publishers and not the governments....
Don't to notice that the magic words now are terrorism, social security, medicare, economy, and job market?
These are strongly connected to the issues of DRM and copyright protections.
If you are a politician, whould you concentrate your efforts to a small group of geeks with crappy voting records?
You're right. Why stand up to corporations in this case? Well, the larger issue now is that corporations are on both sides of the issue and we will see a major war brewing. This may not be seen as much in the public eye but it is still going on nonetheless.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I must say that New Zealand is looking better all the time. We've always made jokes about sheep in NZ and their accents. But with our "American arse-kisser" of a PM, the whole fear-mongering "war on terrorism", and now this FTA - NZ isn't looking so bad! It's not far and I have relatives other there. If the DMCA-like and other IP parts of this FTA turns out as bad as we're fearing, I think we will see a large trans-Tasman migration. And not just of IT workers but even whole companies could move their base over.
Thanks to the preferential voting system this is pretty much how I vote. I give my first preferences to the Greens and Democrats before Labour and the coalition (and then the small nutbag parties). I can do this confident that I'm not "throwing away" my vote. I can vote for the little parties and my lesser-of-two-evils large party at the same time.
We also have compulsory voting, which does a pretty good job of putting fear in our politicians.
Coincidently there is an article on smh.com.au detailing how the only legal music we can put on iPod at the moment is the music a user has created. No iTunes music store, and Rip. Burn. Mix. isn't legal here. (With no enforcers.)
So, you dont have a parliament (see http://www.aph.gov.au/) whose members are elected to represent the people? 'Cause that there qualifies yer country as a republic.