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Patent Mess May Stifle Australian Software
gtoomey writes "Australian Open Source lawyer Brendan Scott is claiming the USA/Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will damage all Australian software development.
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald says that developers have probably built products which 'infringe' on U.S. software patents, while the FTA is forcing Australia to adopt DCMA laws."
This type of stuff has gotta affect everyone, not only in Australia.. Any thoughts on the matter?
I'm a small software development company, a one person one in fact. While I don't have any concerns (yet) about the DMCA, I do worry about patent implications.
Given the spate of trivial patents that are granted, it's somewhat inevitable that any piece of software more complex than perhaps "Hello world" is bount to infringe on something, somewhere.
I'm seriously considering moving my operations base overseas. NewZealand would be nice but it's a tad too close, especially since I've heard that there's plans for greater unification between Au and NZ.
I've contacted my state and local representitives about this matter, strangely all of them see to forsee it as something which "will" happen as apposed to something that the people of Australia even have the slightest choice in. Seems to me that "democratic" governments are far from being such anymore.
PLD.
It has already been raised by America as being a part of any free trade agreement (which supposedly New Zealand wants) and the only reason we don't have a free trade agreement now is our less than 100% support on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - the ongoing nuclear-ship ban also hasn't helped.
Of course New Zealand is most likely to give that bargaining chip away before negotiating any free-trade agreement. Our copyright and patent laws are alredy being revised to bring them more into line with a DMCA type approach. American forces in particular are bringing their weight to bear to re-outlaw parallel importing. And we're mostly likely to bring our commercial laws (including copyright, and DMCA type provisions) into line with Australia. Whenever that happens (eg food regulations) it is always new Zealand that changes to match Australia.
Pretty much our only hope is a general anti-American sentiment by our leftish government. Two problems with that:
a) we won't have a leftish government forever
b) a leftish government is more likely to trade away copyright provisions (no votes there) in exchange (or compensation) for being able to slightly bad-mouth America in the political arena
So we're doomed. But lobby anyway.
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
We're not legally allowed to tape shows off the TV.
Unless the broadcast features the Queen of England, unless I'm mistaken.
Australia - Stupid Laws 'R Us
Just hypothetically, I wonder if the entire rest of the world could collectively survive a cessation of all trade with the USA? And could the USA survive it?
Just in case too many countries ever get a bit tired of the US trying to make them their bitches.
Aren't most of the Samba developers in Australia? If so, would this mean that MS could now go after the Samba developers for infringing on patents in SMB?
Hmm...
Sending traffic across the road to the "Big 4" (Telstra, Optus, MCI/Ozemail, Telco NZ/AAPT) costs a fortune, since they refuse to peer with anybody else. In fact, bringing your own link from the U.S is cheaper than transit bandwidth from the Big 4, that is, if your in Sydney with lots of money. Only 6 ISP's actually have their own international links.
Theres a big push in Australia to get ISP's to peer at peering exchanges like PIPE and WAIX in the capital cities. Most ISP's here (bar the "Big 4" except in one case) are connected to them, and some even offer quota free content for anything that goes through a peering exchange.
Broadband speeds are rediculous here too. Telstra's ADSL wholesale network is limited to 1500/256k with the lowest being 256/64 (and everybody who upgrades from that to 512/128 says that 256/64 isn't broadband). Companies like Optus (and it's XYZed subsidiary), RequestDSL/PowerTel, iiNet (residential deployments, unlike the others), Internode (one DSLAM for a town which didn't have any. Tester said that once things got past 4000k downstream, speed didn't really increase.) and a few others around the country have been rolling out DSLAM's to overcome this limitation.
There are only two major HFC networks, and they are in the captial cities (Optus, Telstra. Both have had an agreement not to lay any coax since 1997. Telstra will eventually replace HFC with FTTH, keep in mind that Telstra, unlike Optus doesn't use HFC for telephony). And some smaller regional deployments, like NCable and TransACT (who rolled out a VDSL network around Canberra using Fibre To The Curb, so every house is within 300m of a DSLAM. Why don't you US slobs think about that before saying 'only useful within 300m of an exchange').
I still remember blowing out my 100mb bandwidth quota years ago on 56k. Didn't get reconnected until my parents got the point of me dialing STD to Melbourne to take advantage of the "free" ISP's that were around at the time.
Whether governments and economic systems would survive is another matter, as the stock markets would collapse, held up as they are by the belief that the US overseas debt will eventually be repaid. Some countries are likely to hold off anarchy better than others, and the core EU states might take over the US role eventually.
As for the US, I guess the long term prospects might actually be beneficial. OK, there would need to be restrictions on oil use. The Bush family would lose influence without the Sa'udis to back them up, but other oil companies would gain power. The Government might have to put down a number of armed uprisings. The economy would go into depression until manufacturing could be restarted, but, let's face it, stuff is changed much too frequently and the skills are there to keep exisitng equipment going, just like the Cubans have to. People might even get healthier as a result of eating less. But there would be a huge one-off benefit from the writing off of US debt to the rest of the world. And the US would be militarily powerful enough to ensure no-one tried to collect on that debt.
I guess the biggest problem would arise if the trade cessation was not associated with an end to military interventionism. If the military intervention stopped as well, the US would benefit financially from bringing the soldiers home. And the likes of Osama Bin Laden would no longer have a USP. OK, Osama, you got what you wanted. Now see how your countrymen, especially the rich ones who just lost their incomes, like it.
Pity about Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, but eventually the fallout will decay, and at least no-one will be fighting over who owns the Jerusalem Crater.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
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I really wish a major country would stand up and say "screw you". I figure it will take a major economic or sociatal event to wake people up. As long as it doesn't impact them much few will care.
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Look to China.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
That is what the US government says about the terrorists.
But it would be more accurate to say that the US government hates other countries' freedoms. That's why they use military and economic muscle and deception to coerce other countries into passing legislation that removes freedoms from the citizens.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Maybe because most people aren't software developers and don't really give a shit about patents and copyright. They do however, give a shit about the cost of medicines.
Frankly, while I do care about patent and copyright issues, the PBS is a lot more immediately important. The cost of medicine and treatment in America is truly horrific and a sign of the future for Australia. We had a system that provided one of the best and inexpensive public medical systems in the world which the current government insists on destroying to serve American interests.
Long term, the FTA will be such an absolute disaster for Australia in so many ways that patents seem trivial by comparison.
It's the intellectual property owners versus intellectual property creators.
They've been working on toughening the laws worldwide in little steps, and then using international treaties to "level the playing field" so they can winch it up again in another corner. I don't know how long this has been going on, really... the Berne Convention, reasonable as it seems, may have been the trigger that started the whole process.
I hate to put it in these terms, but we're going to need to look to the union movement to solve this. It's the owning class, this time the owneres and managers of big companies with patent and copyright portfolios, versus the people who are actually creating the wealth they're accumulating.
Donate free food here
There is a deeper evil in US corporate behaviour that needs to be stopped. A small shoe company in Australia making generic sheep skin boots was taken over and first thing the US owners did is try to stop all others from making this style of boot, and only buy their expensive variety.
a il.asp?c lass=news&subclass=local&category=general%20news&s tory_id=282021&y=2004&m=1
See article for the "microsoft of shoes"
http://bluemountains.yourguide.com.au/det
Using bogus patents for Monopoly.
This is the flip side to vigorous corporations or valid protection of genuine creativity.