Aussies Brace for DMCA

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."

FTA Is A Joke

[GaryPatterson]

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)

Re:It's not ideal, but at least seems an improveme

[GaryPatterson]

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

Ah, the beautiful FTA

[MavEtJu]

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.

Re:Decide Now Media Moguls - Which Way ?

[KiloByte]

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.

Re:Ah, the beautiful FTA

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Money most likely.

Treaties trump Democracy?

[bmh129]

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.

Re:The allmighty dollar will win again.

[plasmacutter]

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.