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Aussies Brace for DMCA

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the spreading-the-love dept.

Rusty writes "Aussies are counting down to the introduction of the US-FTA-required DMCA legislation, and trying to pressure the government to listen to consumers and innovators, not just industrial copyright holders. Linux Australia has kicked off the campaign with iownmydvds.org and iownmymusic.org."

32 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Hang on a minute... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What "US-FTA-required DMCA legislation"? The Australian AG's office only recently published revised copyright information that seemed to be fixing some of the silliness: time-shifting using VCRs, format-shifting of music, etc.

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    1. Re:Hang on a minute... by the_unknown_soldier · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When it comes to copyright Australia has some of the worst laws for consumers. The USFTA was what provided the Attorney General with the political capital to establish some sort of "fair use" doctrine. Currently while (according to the high court) you can use things such as mod-chips and reverse engineering (unlike America) you do not own the copyright to anything you buy. So while it is legal to break the CSS encryption on a DVD, it is ILLEGAL to copy content off that DVD whether it has CSS or not.

      Basically: Australia is establishing fair use, and then in the same swoop allowing content holders to take it away through DMCA provisions. The aim of all this is to make the laws as similar as possible to the laws of that great shit heap some like to call the US congress.

      This all of course pails in comparison to what the USFTA is doing to Australian healthcare. You Americans bag Canadians public health system but Australia's is one of the best in the world. Since the Australian government buys all drugs, we are able to get them cheaper. But the big med companies don't like that. The only reason America made this trade agreement was to please the pharmaceutical companies. this copyright/patent stuff is just coming along for the ride

    2. Re:Hang on a minute... by GaryPatterson · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you seen what those new laws entail?

      After you record a show from TV, you are allowed to watch it exactly once, after which you must *by law* delete it.

      Yes, we finally get some of the Fair Use rights enjoyed by our US friends but it's not yet sane or sensible.

    3. Re:Hang on a minute... by Alsee · · Score: 5, Informative

      What "US-FTA-required DMCA legislation"?

      THIS Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement Article 17.4 section 7 details virtually the exact text of the US DMCA anti-circumvention law and section 8 details virtually the exact text of the US DMCA rights management information law, and reqires the Australian government to pass virtually that exact DMCA text into AU law.

      7. (a) In order to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms use in connection with the exercise of their rights and that restrict unauthorised acts in respect of their works, performances, and phonograms, each Party shall provide that any person who:

      (i) knowingly, or having reasonable grounds to know, circumvents without authority any effective technological measure that controls access to a protected work, performance, or phonogram, or other subject matter; or

      (ii) manufactures, imports, distributes, offers to the public, provides, or otherwise traffics in devices, products, or components, or offers to the public, or provides services that:

      (A) are promoted, advertised, or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of any effective technological measure;

      (B) have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent any effective technological measure; or

      (C) are primarily designed, produced, or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of any effective technological measure,

      shall be liable and subject to the remedies specified in Article 17.11.13. Each Party shall provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied where any person is found to have engaged wilfully and for the purposes of commercial advantage or financial gain in any of the above activities. Each Party may provide that such criminal procedures and penalties do not apply to a non-profit library, archive, educational institution, or public non-commercial broadcasting entity.

      (b) Effective technological measure means any technology, device, or component that, in the normal course of its operation, controls access to a protected work, performance, phonogram, or other protected subject matter, or protects any copyright.

      (c) In implementing sub-paragraph (a), neither Party shall be obligated to require that the design of, or the design and selection of parts and components for, a consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing product provide for a response to any particular technological measure, so long as the product does not otherwise violate any measures implementing sub-paragraph (a).

      (d) Each Party shall provide that a violation of a measure implementing this paragraph is a separate civil or criminal offence and independent of any infringement that might occur under the Party's copyright law.

      (e) Each Party shall confine exceptions to any measures implementing sub-paragraph (a) to the following activities, which shall be applied to relevant measures in accordance with sub-paragraph (f):

      (i) non-infringing reverse engineering activities with regard to a lawfully obtained copy of a computer program, carried out in good faith with respect to particular elements of that computer program that have not been readily available to the person engaged in those activities, for the sole purpose of achieving interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs;

      (ii) non-infringing good faith activities, carried out by an appropriately qualified researcher who has lawfully obtained a copy, unfixed performance, or display of a work, performance, or phonogram and who has made a good faith effort to obtain authorisation for such activities, to the extent necessary for the sole purpose of identifying and analysing flaws and vulnerabilities of technologies for scrambling and descrambling of information;

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    4. Re:Hang on a minute... by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Interesting

      you do not own the copyright to anything you buy

      How does that differ from any other country's copyright law? You own the medium and a licence to use the content on it in certain limited ways. Some countries specifically allow you to (eg) media- or format-shift the content, some (including the UK and apparently Australia) do not.

      However, those that do have such "fair use" clauses do *not* grant you the copyright on anything you buy. The exception to that, of course, is when you enter into a contract with someone which states that you do own the copyright, but that's only because the person or organisation is specifically selling it to you.

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    5. Re:Hang on a minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      On the subject of technological prevention measures, I think this Italian Judge had the right approach. He turned down the request that H3G customers removing SIM card locks (and businesses offering unlocking services) be prosecuted for criminal offences such as unauthorized access to an information technology system, information technology fraud and unauthorised possession of access devices. H3G and LG had sold over 6 million video cell phones at cut down prices, together with 1-2 year subscriptions to network services. However about 500000 subscribers unlocked their phones to use cheaper SIM cards. Milan based Judge Braghó ruled that H3G's request was unfounded because the customers were the legal owners of their phones.
      H3G+LG could sue their customers for breach of contract, which is a civil law matter. However customers were not informed of the restrictions when purchasing the phones, so no contract was legally entered. This was reported last week on La Repubblica (in Italian).

    6. Re:Hang on a minute... by the_unknown_soldier · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Under Australian law you haven't even bought "content". You haven't even bought the right to view content. All you have bought is a peice of plastic. Doing anything to the copyrighted material on it other than listening straight off of the disk (read: mp3's) is illegal. It's semantics, but i take your point.

    7. Re:Hang on a minute... by dbIII · · Score: 5, Informative
      The only reason America made this trade agreement was to please the pharmaceutical companies.
      Not quite - it was also supposed to be our bribe for helping out in Iraq - that's right, we did it for the money. It probably serves us right when the trade deal screwed Australia over horribly with downright insulting clauses like not being able to negotiate about trading more beef until 2020, and you can complelely forget about steel, sugar, wheat and everything else the trade minister was interested in. Facing an upcoming election and hit with a "buy now or never get a chance" attitude the trade minister had to agree to anything at all that was offered - hence Australia was screwed over. I'm not sure how many of the weird USA IP laws will actually be enforced - the USA is becoming far less relevant to Australian trade since it is difficult to sell things to the US from here and it makes sense to buy the goods the US would sell from China instead of paying for shipping twice. We'd probably break a few rules - after all we were in it for the money which never arrived, and a government body (eventually privatised) was paying Saddam bribes right up to the time our troops were sitting on the border waiting for the orders to roll in.

      Austalian politics would look weird in the USA - the federal government is made up of coalition of a populist right wing party that calls themselves the "Liberal" party combined with an agrarian socialist party who are far to the left on rural issues and far to the right on city issues. They do not have control of any state - so there has been a power struggle between state and federal government for years and their opponents are funded to a great extent by the trade unions and the Federal government is at this point trying to make the unions irrelevant to starve the opposition with some success. Generally Austalia does actually take a more liberal view than the USA on a lot of issues - due to most of the services and all of the domestic law enforcement being a duty of the states and due to many of the ruling federal party deciding that conservatism means doing nothing. Where the federal government has full responisbility, like immigration, the different ideology shows - with residency visas granted after donations to the party at one end and rapid mistaken deportation of our own citizens to countries at the other, and the officials responsible getting a bonus for each deportation (why check the paperwork when you can personally make more money rushing things through and there is no personal accountability?). There are some things a government should not be allowing the profit motive to interfere with for the good of the state - the for profit immigration detention centres were both a disgrace and a huge drain on the nations revenues. The USA may joke about pound me in the ass prisons, but in Australia male prisioners were raping female prisioners held in the same facility with no way to lock their doors and stop the same thing happening over and over.

  2. I started a new campaign by Tribbin · · Score: 3, Funny

    See more info at:

    iownyourdvds.org

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  3. The allmighty dollar will win again. by plasmacutter · · Score: 2, Informative

    Call me a cynic, but i've seen unequivocal evidence from the EU member nations that these elitists don't give a damn about what their own peoples have to say.

    *shameless plug* check my sig for details. */shameless plug*

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    1. Re:The allmighty dollar will win again. by Bogtha · · Score: 2, Informative

      Australia is not an EU member nation. It's not even in Europe, it's on a completely different continent on the other side of the world. Perhaps you are thinking of Austria?

      --
      Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
    2. Re:The allmighty dollar will win again. by mgblst · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, you are also wrong. Australia is actually the 51st state of USA. Perhaps you were thinking of New Zealand?

    3. Re:The allmighty dollar will win again. by Pofy · · Score: 2, Informative

      >so they protect "rights" controls?

      Yes, circumvention of protection of actions that the copyright holder has exclusive rights on. Or if you want to look at it in some other way. Protection of something that would otherwise have been an infringement and nothing else.

      >that's even worse.

      Even worse than what? The US has the exact same PLUS the added protection for "access".

      >us courts have determined that there is no real difference between enforcing a rights
      >control and enforcing an access control.

      Because in the US the DMCA covers both the "rights" control and the "access" control. My point was that this is NOT true for Europe were the access is not there in the directive.

      >In order to disable rights controls you must gain access, and in order to disable access
      >controls you must control your rights.. you cant have one without the other with DRM.

      The only "rights" (at least as far as the EU directive goes and actually for the US DMCA also I think but I don't have it at hand here to verify) are those the copyright law gives a copyright holder. NO other rights.

    4. Re:The allmighty dollar will win again. by plasmacutter · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, circumvention of protection of actions that the copyright holder has exclusive rights on. Or if you want to look at it in some other way. Protection of something that would otherwise have been an infringement and nothing else.

      DRM is not designed this way.. it is designed with the default as "deny".

      In other words.. "protection" from any uses some unimaginative RIAA schill didnt think of.. all of which are fair uses, and "protection" from such democratic ideas as interoperability, format shifting, space shifting, and self-editing.

      Even worse than what? The US has the exact same PLUS the added protection for "access".
      no.. the us law explicitly stated that "rights controls" could be bypassed for fair use, this was later overturned because you had to circumvent access controls in order to access and disable the rights controls.

      Either way.. it doesnt matter that the US has the same.. If your friend jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

      The only "rights" (at least as far as the EU directive goes and actually for the US DMCA also I think but I don't have it at hand here to verify) are those the copyright law gives a copyright holder. NO other rights.

      By protecting DRM you allow copyright industries to take rights from the public with said DRM, and it will have the force of law because it is illegal to bypass said DRM for any reason.

      All this can be done, thanks to the EUCD, without any judicial oversight, without any public debate.. unilaterally.. by one side of a 3 sided overlap of the rights of conflicting parties.

      --
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  4. Wrong address. by Ihlosi · · Score: 5, Funny
    The address is unreachable.



    Maybe you meant www.weownyourdvds.com ?

    1. Re:Wrong address. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, it was a lame attempt at a joke on the parent poster's part. He said that HE started a campaign. But the site he mentioned, like many instances in his life, has DNS problems because he just just couldn't get it up.

  5. FTA Is A Joke by GaryPatterson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The ruling elite here in Australia, the increasingly ironically named Liberal Party, solid the FTA on the basis of free and equal trade between Australia and the US. Because, you know, we have an equal seating at the bargaining table. Australia and the largest economy on the planet. Equal.

    Yeah, that works.

    After about a year we find that US imports have nearly tripled, while Australian exports to the US have dropped.

    Amazing surprise to some of us who spoke out at the time but were silenced by the scream of 'free money' from the US that so many thought they'd see.

    The FTA also included a number of hilarious provisions like "you can export beef to the US in 18 years, unless they veto it in the meantime" and "bend over for our DMCA."

    So now we welcome our US overlords, and hope that they don't brutalise our nation too badly when we become a new vassal province (or dare we hope - a state!). The national anthem never really caught on anyway. It has the word "girt" in it, which was too much for most Aussies.

    Go DMCA! It's a bloody bonza idea, you beauty! (just practicing for the re-education camps)

    1. Re:FTA Is A Joke by theadman · · Score: 3, Funny

      John Howard it so firmly in the pocket of George W. that Mr. Bush's phone gets scratched on the Aussie leaders glasses...

    2. Re:FTA Is A Joke by G-funk · · Score: 4, Informative

      The FTA had nothing to do with import and export levels, that was peripheral. It was about selling us BS "intellectual property" in return for limiting the US farming subsidies so our economy that's still based so heavily in primary induustry doesn't fall over.

      --
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    3. Re:FTA Is A Joke by kubrick · · Score: 3, Funny

      I always preferred "John Howard is so far up George W. Bush's arse that he can see the bottom of Tony Blair's feet."

      --
      deus does not exist but if he does
    4. Re:FTA Is A Joke by graffix_jones · · Score: 2, Interesting
      After about a year we find that US imports have nearly tripled, while Australian exports to the US have dropped.

      Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics can tell you that this has more to do with the weakening of the US Dollar versus some sort of sinister plan to infiltrate your market with American goods. Even if you don't understand economics, common sense tells you that if something becomes cheaper, more of it will probably be sold, which is exactly what is happening in this instance. And since the AU $ is now stronger vs. the US $, Americans can afford to buy fewer goods exported from Australia.

      Doesn't that sound like a logical explanation?

      Usually at this point is when trade protection measures pop up to protect domestic production, so that the cheaper prices of imported goods are offset with either a tariff on the imported good, or a subsidy to the domestic good manufacturers to once again level the playing field... if you keep your eyes open I'm sure you'll see that happening shortly.
  6. It's not ideal, but at least seems an improvement by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, I did think that particular example was daft. (I read several of the responses the AG's issues paper and the AG's subsequent comments while preparing a submission of my own for the UK's Gowers review.)

    That said, it's a lot less daft than selling VCRs but saying that all time-shifting is illegal, which seemed to be the case before. It might not be ideal, but at least things are going in the right direction. :-)

    I thought some of the other provisions, such as the format-shifting I mentioned before, sounded a lot more reasonable.

    Do you know what the article here is talking about? Both links were Slashdotted (despite apparently being cache links... go figure) and unless I'm missing something there's nothing mentioned by name to go and look up. What is this new legislation, and how does it fit in with the AG's issues paper and the review of the ACA?

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  7. Re:It's not ideal, but at least seems an improveme by GaryPatterson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All that time we allowed sale of VCRs and iPods, but disallowed the use of them! Crazy guys!

  8. Yet another DMCA-like by Submarine · · Score: 3, Informative

    After the DMCA in the USA...
    After the 2001 EUCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Copyright_Directi ve) in the EU...
    After the 2006 DADVSI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI) in France...

  9. Re:Obligatory... by Cyberax · · Score: 4, Funny

    No,no.

    www.AllYourMusicAreBelongTo.us

  10. Ah, the beautiful FTA by MavEtJu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love it when John Howard goes over to the USA for a visit and comes back...

    ... One time he came back with the idea of an Free Trade Agreement

    ... And the next time he came back with the idea that nuclear weapons were safe and that same-sex marriages were dangerous.

    I don't know what they feed him there in Washington, but it surely isn't healthy.

    --
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    1. Re:Ah, the beautiful FTA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > I don't know what they feed him there in Washington, but it surely isn't healthy.

      Money most likely.

    2. Re:Ah, the beautiful FTA by multipartmixed · · Score: 2

      > I don't know what they feed him there in Washington,
      > but it surely isn't healthy.

      I don't know, I think George W.'s sperm is probably full of protein and other good things.

      --

      Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  11. Decide Now Media Moguls - Which Way ? by craznar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ok ... I'm happy for the record companies to have a choice, either:

    A: I buy a DVD, and I own it ... I can copy it, put it on my hard drive and if I lose it I have to buy a new one.
    B: I buy the rights to play the DVD... I can't copy it, however if I lose it I can walk into a store and take another one free.

    Seems reasonable to me...

    Wait ... there is one flaw in my plan, just one word. I'm sure you can guess which one it is.

    If I ever get nabbed for some stupid DMCA law, I'm going to very publicly sell my several thousand dollars of purchased DVDs to pay for some of my defence.

    I think that will make the point...

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    1. Re:Decide Now Media Moguls - Which Way ? by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Ok ... I'm happy for the record companies to have a choice, either:

      A: I buy a DVD, and I own it ... I can copy it, put it on my hard drive and if I lose it I have to buy a new one.
      B: I buy the rights to play the DVD... I can't copy it, however if I lose it I can walk into a store and take another one free.

      [...]
      If I ever get nabbed for some stupid DMCA law, I'm going to very publicly sell my several thousand dollars of purchased DVDs to pay for some of my defence.
      You assume that you have any rights to whatever you bought/licensed. The whole point of DMCA-like laws is to deny you these very rights. Including the right to resell your purchased DVDs. Just wait for the (mandatory) DRM.
      --
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  12. Treaties trump Democracy? by bmh129 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It looks like the politicians have figured out one more way to take away rights--use treaties. All they need is one other country to agree with them, and suddenly, unpopular legislation must be passed to comply with the treaty. And then, when "those pesky liberals" complain about losing their rights, politicians justify it by saying it was for free trade--as if that's supposed to mean anything good to Joe Schmo, who's most likely going to lose his job to outsourcing, and not have any civil liberties left to redress his grievances.

    It's not that I'm against free trade. I'm not against it at all. But why are we stuck in this false dilemma of either civil liberties or trade liberties?

    Oh, wait, I know why... because Hollywood said so.

  13. Free Trade MY ARSE by sr180 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    After we signed the free trade agreement, imports from the US went up, and exports TO the US went DOWN.

    We got screwed, royally.

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