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Australia-U.S. Trade Agreement Takes First Strike
inflex writes "With the recent AU-US Federal trade ageement coming into force, the first signs of what is to come have started appearing with Sony unleashing a legal bid to clamp down on previously legal mods chips in Australia."
trying to outlaw technology just because it CAN be used for bad things. Without the mod chip, I wouldn't be able to import games. I don't know how me importing games is bad for Sony.
Great, so these chips themselves don't violate any copyrights, they just allow you to use your console as though it were a computer. Yes you can pirate software on a computer and you pirate software on a modded console--so what? Do the manufacturer's really have a right to say that you can only use content licensed from them on a machine you bought? Hell no. Unless they make you sign a contract and that is a term, then no, this is insane.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
was already given the last time. It was also nothing to do with piracy either. They had seen that SONY were creating an artificial trade barrier, why would the new law change their minds and hand a victory to SONY. Surely it cannot make that much of a difference, not when the original verdict was far more insightful than what SONY was portraying because it had nothing to do with piracy.
Jonathanjk.com
Do the manufacturer's really have a right to say that you can only use content licensed from them on a machine you bought? Hell no. Unless they make you sign a contract and that is a term, then no, this is insane.
I think you're confusing the way things should be with the way things actually are.
My other first post is car post.
From the article:
However, Justice Ronald Sackville ruled in favour of Mr Stevens after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission intervened in the case. The competition watchdog argued that Sony was using the copy control mechanism to erect artificial trade barriers between Australian consumers and overseas games and DVD markets.
Really? No kidding? It seems to me like erecting trade barriers has been the only use of the DMCA and related copyright legislation's restriction on copy control mechanisms. DVDs and region coding/CSS, Lexmark and printer cartridges, Sony and modchips. Can someone please give me a valid instance of the DMCA's copy control mechanism clauses being invoked in a case that didn't involve keeping a potential competitor out of a specific market?
Free yourself. Everything else will follow.
If you don't buy your Sony games locally, you undercut Sony's ability to gouge on local game prices locally. And from what I've heard, video game companies seem to gouge on local game prices in Australia quite a bit.
It's all about protecting corps, such as Sony, from the effects of global capitalism; market forces are bad for profits, so technological and legal barriers to their proper operation must be put in place. Modern corporatism demands that only corporations get to benefit from globalization, never consumers.
I think anyone who's been keeping up to date with international agreements could see this coming a mile away. Australia is just the latest in a series of countries that have signed up for a Free Trade Agreement with the United States and received a bonus kick in the nuts to their copyright laws.
As an Australian, however, it's a lot more personal. I read /. I keep up to date on stuff like this. I sent letters to all political parties about this, with little success. My problem is this: I can talk to the politicians, but in an issue such as this, which politician will stand on principles to block the copyright amendments and subject themselves to "blocking Australian jobs" and other, more emotionally-laden epithets?
We know why the copyright amendments are in there; the USA is willing to sacrifice protectionism in a few key markets for a bigger stick on copyright. The USA wins: they get to stop the popular-but-expensive subsidies, while being popular in the electorate for their copyright stance.
The other country, my country, thinks it's getting a good deal, but ends up with an Intellectual property deficit. The politicians don't care - they reap the political benefits now.
Sorry for the rant. I guess it's just sour grapes - one would think that after helping the US with that crazy War on Terror thing, that we'd at least get the courtesy of lube before the big event.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
You can tell me what i can do to my legaly purchased goods all you want ,the fact is im not going to listen if it comes into effect where i live , Its called civil disobediance . , . .
. . ,Um cant think of one for guns ... maybe hunt... And Spread butter on your bread.
The fact is people buy products not licenses to use them in this case , mod chips are illegal because they potentialy could enable the use of pirate games.
now lets look at the logic here
If i am going to use an illegaly cloned game i bought at some back street store or got online , do you think i would have any qualms about also getting a modchip sent to me and installing it, the simple awnser is
"Probbaly not ".
Now if i wanted to modify my console to turn it into someform of server , or homebrew test kit for making my own games then i may just think twice
The real reason they dont want people doing this is not the piracy issue as they know that people will pirate anyway and this will only make it a tiny bit more inconveniant
The real reason i belive is that of two things , They profit from Games sales not hardware(thus homebrew is a problem or could potentialy be int he future , and people turning it into something else) and the fact that region encoding is not an anti piracy mesure but a way to make sure people dont benifit from better prices in difrent regions.
TO bring out an old addage i have used many times before , Are Guns illegal as they facillitate murder which is infact the sole purpose of handguns (to kill),In most countrys Yes it is illegal for a person to own a gun but not to mod a console, In America however no
I wont get into the gun ownership debate , but i will say this Please have equal standerds , the same applys to P2P programs , just because they may be used to break the (civil)law , it dosn't mean they should be illegal.
Mod chips , just as guns and Beer and bread knifes may all be used to break the law
They also may all be used to respectivly , Install linux on your xbox or so on
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
...to be part of your "land of the free".
Sincerely, an Australian.
Free-trade: Were we are free to trade our laws for Americas.
I'm Australian, but have not lived there in quite a while.
Every time I go back, I'm disgusted by just how corporate-bitch that nation has become. I shouldn't be surprised; Australia has pretty much always been the Gimp Nation of the Western Imperialists, but stories like this just ring the bell even clearer.
Will Australia ever change? I don't think so; I believe it is the model state for what is planned for other formerly-great nations
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Sony will be in a weaker negotiating position when they talk terms with foreign distributors/publishers "
So what?
Really, I can't imagine why this is the general public's concern. I certainly can't imagine why its the job of the Australian government to make sure Sony is in the best negotiating position with local distributors.
its bad enough that we spread crap media and movies to countries like australia, now we give them laws...
I wonder how much longer the ACCC will be around for. They keep getting in the way of the big corporations; they've stopped Telstras' (au phone company) anti-competitive activities many times, they've stopped the big oil companies price manipulation and as seen here they have gotten in the way of Sonys' region locking.
Considering the Australian government gets donations from those big corporation and that the ACCC is funded by the government i simply cant see the organisation lasting.
I was under the impression that once I purchase something (be it a PS2, a torch, a computer, a book, etc) it becomes mine and I can do as I please with it. If I want to tear the book apart, I can do so. If I want to modify the torch or the computer, I can do so. But apparantly that has all changed now: modifying _MY_ PS2, containing hardware that _I_ own is no longer condoned. Does this effectively mean the company still owns the rights to the inside of the PS2? Am I not allowed to create any 'derivative works' of the hardware? I also don't like the fact that the state will assume that I am guilty purely because a corporation says I am.
Stella-Artois amonst others is from Belgium. You should try traveling to Europe and drinking some nice beer before you slag it off.
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
I've seen something like this coming since they started bragging how good the free-trade agreement will be for Australia. Of course, most politicians here don't comprehend copyright, patents, and the such, since they are concentrating on the now so they get elected into office again in 3 years time. If it makes them look good, they don't care how it will affect us long term.
I had already decided that with the PS3, I would by from Japan, I'm sick of having so many games out of my reach. Such behavior by Sony only strengthens the resolve to learn Japanese.
Sony will get no more impulse buys from me.
And the worst part is, we're addicted to it now in Canada. So much of our trade is directly between us and the U.S. that we've become dependent on it, Canada is treated terribly unfair to the expense of Canadian producers and consumers alike, but the sheer amount of business means that the price of breaking off would be prohibitively expensive. It's an abusive relationship we've trapped ourselves in. (Though I feel a bit odd phrasing things the way I do, having dual-citizenship and all . . . the "them" and "us" tend to differ from occasion to occasion for me. I could just as easily rephrase the above as remorse over how abysmally "we" treat "them"). But, yes. The icing on the cake, of course, is that the arbitration in NAFTA invariably falls in favour of the States, so even having binding arbitration wouldn't help Canada much. I've heard it remarked that much of Australia's history is a result of trying to pretend it's part of Europe and the Western countries, while in reality it sits right alonside Asia. This may be a better way to go; ignore free trade with the states, start making use of the fact that they're within sight of Japan and China and so on. Though from all the things I can remember reading about the state of these ideas in Australia, and the current politics, I suppose that isn't all that likely to happen. Oh well. People will realize; probably too late, though. Canada and Australia can go out for drinks and bitch to eachother about how crappy the States treat them, and then cave in again the next time the U.S. comes around.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
That was the Alan Fells ACCC. The ACCC is under new management which is more "pro business". Expect a lot less of the Alan Fells stick up for the little guy and expect a lot more of handing the big spiky stick to corporate Australia to beat us with.
.au hated the ACCC because they were interventionist and tended to want to ensure that our market didn't turn into a monopoly. The new ACCC is very friendly towards the desires of business and cares little for anyone else.
The conservatives in
No, you wouldn't. See what happens is, your Aussie favorite pint, will be licensed to be made by a US brewer, who will totally cock up the process, leaving you with beer that is arguably better than most US brews (really, that isn't tough. The piss they drink is really gross. Two words "Coors Light". WTF. Thats like making "Low cal water"), but is a poor attempt at what you are used to.
I have never been more disappointed than the time I saddled up in a US bar, and ordered a Labatts Blue after a week of drinking the usual US beers by the dozen in a mad attempt to get half drunk. That first belt was brutal. It was like someone sold them the bottles, and the labels, and they just filled it with the same old crappy US beer.
Hate to tell you, the Aussies will end up losing in this deal. There will be some successes, enough for the government to claim to its people "look at all of the new exports and jobs", then reality will settle in. You will get fucked over, you will appeal, you will win, and the US will say "Tough". Just wait for it, case #1 will be a half dozen sheep farmers from Idaho will lobby against the unfair pricing of Aussie lamb and wool (like what Canada gets with softwood lumber), and the tariffs will go up, illegally. You will complain, and they will chant USA USA, and do nothing. Americans love the laws of supply and demand, as long as they get to make the rules for supply.
Remember, in the US FTA doesn't mean Free Trade Agreement, it means Fuck Them All (of course now it probably means Fuck Them Aussies).
Writing as a Canadian, free trade with the US has neither been boon nor disaster. The fact is we had free trade in most industries before the FTA. All the FTA and later the NAFTA did was make a uniform structure for all the covered industries. What it did not do was: make make trade disputes easier to resolve, compel the US to comply with rulings decided in favour of the other parties involved or bring a level playing field to the industries on the continent. It did, however, give US companies a soapbox to wail how hard done by they are as well.
Fact is that the US government would never agree to anything that would guarantee a level playing field. The government is in it to protect the ability of their industries to maximize their profits who in turn fund the parties through contributions etc. Their agreement the Aussies is not a reward for Australia going to Iraq (no matter how iti is painted), it is there to provide an access point for the US to pressure Australia on trade deals not in the US's favour and in areas where Australia may be better able to compete with US industry. Yes, and as someone here said, keep you eyes on your strategic mining resources.
Reward, yeah, I love that. The US government (and I make the distinction because most Americans I've met have been more than decent people), has a very short memory and is a "what have you done for me this hour" kind of entity. It all about the money.
He's right about the beer. Have you tasted US-made stuff? It tastes like toxic waste in a can. Give me a good English, Irish, or Canadian brew any time.
"Have we sent the 'don't shoot us we're pathetic' transmission yet?" - John Crichton, IASA