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Australia-U.S. Trade Agreement Takes First Strike

Posted by timothy on from the waittaminute-that-isn't-by-the-people-for-the-people dept.

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."

18 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. another FP for the jihad by bitmsk · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    sacred jihad against slashdot's editors

    1. Re:another FP for the jihad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      jihads are for fuckfaces.

  2. Off-topic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What would space rockets look like if women designed them? Discuss.

    1. Re:Off-topic? by vranash · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      The Syreen ship from Star Control 1/2 :-P

    2. Re:Off-topic? by hcob$ · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      I'd have to have one heck of a vibration feature ;)

      --
      Cliff Claven
      K.E.G. Party Chairman
      Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
  3. It's just loading slowly. Still comes up. by PornMaster · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    NM

    --
    500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
  4. Women could never design something so cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Q: Why couldn't Helen Keller drive a car?
    A: Because she was a woman.

    1. Re:Women could never design something so cool by rathehun · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Don't reply to the troll... ...damn.

  5. multi zone DVD is next by pbjones · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    ah, the downhill slide to stupidity.

    --
    There was an unknown error in the submission.
  6. Simpsons reference by The+Amazing+Fish+Boy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Also expect some law suits from Americans about the product you guys sell as "beer".

    Wait, are we talking about coffee or beer?

  7. Re:Bend over Aussies and... by jwdb · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Also expect some law suits from Americans about the product you guys sell as "beer".

    Right. And when you Americans force the same agreement on us Europeans, we'll have a few remarks about your "beer" :)

    You don't know what beer is until you've been among the Germanic people. Hell, my own country of Belgium isn't much bigger than Massachusetts, but we've got somewhere in the 300 different beers coming from over a hundred breweries. No idea what the Germans themselves have, but I expect it's significantly more.

    Jw

  8. Re:Bend over Aussies and... by boogy+nightmare · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    *cough* cheek's *cough*

    And already stated, how the Americans can force their, for want of a better word, piss water ... ugh.. i mean beer on a nation of Drinkers only surpassed by the mad germanic larger swillers is beyond me :)

    --
    Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
  9. Re:Bend over Aussies and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    IT is interesting that your country has tried over 300 different types of beer and still cannot make one good enough for every one to drink.

    Thats the difference between american and your country. We make somethign and make it good, while you guys piss around getting it wrong then celebrate how many times it didn't come out right.

  10. Re:Bend over Aussies and... by strider44 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Oktoberfest is the Germany's biggest import over here.

  11. 300? Pah! Thousands more like! by pommiekiwifruit · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The Delirium Cafe in Brussels has more than 2000 beers in just one pub. Such a pity I'm not a beer drinker.

  12. Living in Region 4 by ockegheim · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    The devices override copy control mechanisms Sony builds into its consoles to block the use of pirated games and DVDs encoded for players built to operate in other regions.

    For a while I've been building up a list of movies I want to show my girlfriend but that I can never seem to find in the local video shop. Yesterday I did a check, and surprise surprise, almost none of them are available as Region 4 disks. Of course these are obscure titles like Top Hat and The Impostors.

    So if I had a PS2, Sony would want to tell me what I could watch or not. Good luck to them. Why on earth governments in Region 4 agreed to this crap in the first place is beyond me, but it would help if they don't enforce these rules.

    --
    I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
  13. German beer is overrated... by Goonie · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Maybe I was just unlucky, but when I was over there cruising round the past two summers the beer wasn't spectacular. Most of the time the local brew was a pilsener that, while having a different label on it, tasted pretty much the same from town to town (and I tried beer in a considerable number of towns). Sure, it was better than Victoria Bitter, and immeasurably better than any of the abominations the major breweries make in America (if you ever want a laugh, go to epinions.com and read the reviews of Bud), but they were all in all pretty unremarkable.

    Hefeweizen or dunkelweizen, now, some of them were pretty special. Amongst the food, the schnitzels and the bread were better than anything I've had elsewhere :)

    --

    Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
    --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
  14. Re:Bend over Aussies and... {off topic} by hcob$ · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Guns don't kill people; husbands who come home early kill people.

    --
    Cliff Claven
    K.E.G. Party Chairman
    Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance