🚀 go-pugleaf

Kieron Briggs <kieron@abuzz.com.au> wrote in
message news:411ace39$1_1@news.iprimus.com.au...
> Rod Speed wrote
>> Kieron Briggs <kieron@abuzz.com.au> wrote
>>> 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

Deliberately and flagrant dishonestly leaving out reams
of  qualification on COMMERCIAL circumvention etc.

You flagrantly and dishonestly overstated what 17.4.7 ACTUALLY says.

>  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]

Nothing like your original claim.

>>> 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.

Or that any court here would interpret the
legislative amendments that sweepingly.

>>> 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.

Nope. In spades with how the courts will interpret the amendments.

> 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.

Pity it doesnt say anything like what you claimed will become illegal.

And Varghese gets no say on how the courts
will interpret that legislation anyway.

With that last claim you made, there is NO chance any court here
would take such a mindless narrow minded view of what is illegal.

And that is YOUR claim, not Varghese's.