[plug] [OT] Australia To Adopt U.S.-Style Copyright Laws

[Harry]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004 20:53:06 +0800 Leon Brooks <leon at brooks.fdns.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 9 Feb 2004 20:35, James Devenish wrote:
> > One of the several pitfalls of the AUSFTA (which apparently mirror
> > many of those imposed upon Canada as part of the North American "Free
> > Trade" Agreement), is this "harmonisation" with the USA. Apparently,
> > these problems were known publicly (and I followed some discussion of
> > them in recent weeks), but the media were mostly (entirely?)
> > uninterested in pointing them out. The AUSFTA still needs to be given
> > assent by the US and Australian governments before it comes into
> > effect.
> 
> Sounds like the school system. Up The Garden Path, sorry, Pathways To 
> Learning was demonstrated to be broken in Canada, which produced a 
> generation of illiterates after 12 years of PTL. The Australian gummint 
> adopted it, and when they were criticised for so doing, said, "well 
> it's up to us to make it work then, isn't it". <thwack>
> 
> The question is, what can we do about it now? I've already asked DFAT, 
> does anyone have other ideas?

It has to be passed by US Congress and our own Parliament. Latham has been
saying that the agreement is bad for agriculture (meaning sugar, beef and
dairy voters) so protestations to Kate Lundy would be appropriate to
highlight your concerns. 

http://www.katelundy.com.au/

I don't have access to the 500 page document with the specifics and their
consequences. If past attention to IP and technology is anything to go by
there is a risk that IT has been conceded as a package we buy from the US.

Don't expect any attention from the media. They are simply reflectors for
the loud apologies from government directed at the sugar industry. The
more noise about suger, the less air time for careful analysis of the rest
of the agreement that deserves scrutiny.

An example of "harmonising" is that we will lose a very useful freedom to
reverse engineer an interface or protocol for the pruposes of compatibility
with existing systems. The Samba team are always at pains to point out that
they "observe" a protocol using stimulus and response but I think their
processes and approach will be at risk. Not because it is wrong but that
there are interests who would seek to argue it's legality.

And that's just one example that came to mind listening to the brief
summary on the ABC PM program.

Harry

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