🚀 go-pugleaf

Rod Speed wrote:
> "Kieron Briggs" <kieron@abuzz.com.au> wrote in message news:41199AC4.2090203@abuzz.com.au...
>>Sylvia Else wrote:
>>>netvegetable quoted:
>>>
>>>>The US-Australia Free Trade Agreement poses a grave threat to the entire
>>>>Australian software development industry due to the legal framework on
>>>>intellectual property which is required upon adoption of the pact, the
>>>>Open Source Industry Association and Linux Australia have warned.
>>>
>>>Can anyone point to anything specific in legislation before the
>>>Australian Parliament that is a source of concern in respect of software?
 >> ...
>>Currently Australia has anti-circumvention laws which prohibit making
>>and distributing devices that circumvent measures to prevent copyright
>>infringement. The FTA requires these laws to be extended in two ways:
>>   - Using such a device becomes an infringement where it previously
>>     wasn't
>>   - The measures are now about 'access control', not prevention of
>>     infringement.
> 
> Lies, the FTA REQUIRES no such thing.

Article 17.4.7 of the agreement 
(http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/final-text/chapter_17.html) 
states that penalties apply to any person who:

     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

and that:

     Effective technological measure means any technology, device,
     or component that, in the normal course of its operation,
     controls access to a protected work

 From the document I referenced, page 29:

     However, under current Australian law the definition of TPMs
     is restricted to devices, products or components designed,
     in the ordinary course of operation, to _prevent_or_inhibit_
     _copyright_infringement_ (s. 10, Copyright Act). AUSFTA
     contains a much broader definition that includes any devices
     that _control_access_ to copyright material. This is a
     significant distinction, as it means that the laws required
     by AUSFTA would protect TPMs that may do more (or less)
     than prevent copyright infringement, such as protection from
     parallel importation or competition for accessories

[emphasis in original]


>>For example, it was previously legal for me to watch DVDs on my Linux
>>workstation, using software which circumvents the CSS scrambling,
>>because use of such devices was not covered, and I was only accessing
>>the media, not copying it. This will now be illegal.
> 
> Another lie. You aint established that it will be illegal in Australia.
> 
>>Also, consider what happens when works eventually leave copyright
>>protection (author's death plus 70 years under the FTA). They become
>>public domain, and anyone is free to access, copy and use them in any
>>way. However, if they are on a protected medium (eg, 70 years from now),
>>there may be no way to do so without circumventing the protection, which
>>under the FTA would be illegal.
> 
> Another lie. You aint established that it will be illegal in Australia.

Also on page 29 of the document I referenced, it states:

     This means that circumvention of TPMs, or devices (including
     software) that allow TPMs to be circumvented are crimes even
     if no copyright infringement results from the circumvention.

Which clearly establishes that both of my examples will be illegal in 
Australia.

This is from the Guide to copyright and patent law changes in the US 
Free Trade Agreement Implementation Bill 2004, writen by Jacob Varghese 
of the Law and Bills Digests Section of the Australian Parliamentary 
Library, so it is an authorative source.


Kieron Briggs
Web Admin, http://www.andrewwilkie.org.au/
Proudly a member of the Ryde Epping Greens