Posts tagged…Copyright
ACTA is an attack on the WTO
Wed, Jun 16 2010India has complained in the recent TRIPS council that the ACTA provisions modify the balance of rights and obligations established by a multilateral agreement (TRIPS) covering the same domain. The secret negotiation of this plurilateral agreement by a cabal that included Australia is an attack on that balance and hence on one of the pillars of WTO.
"Countries excluded from the ACTA process have…
Read more…Remove the buy-local tax on books
Tue, Jul 14 2009Yes! The right recommendation for a more competitive and better-informed (or, at least, better-read) Australia.
"The Government should repeal Australia’s Parallel Import Restrictions (PIRs) for books. The repeal should take effect three years after the date that it is announced." Extract from Research report - Productivity Commission
This discretionary quota on books maintains local margins for…
Manufacturing copyright ‘consensus’
Fri, Jun 26 2009
A fascinating analysis of a 'coalition of interest' at work—strategies often alleged but rarely detailed with such clarity.
Geist shows how three Canadian entertainment industry organizations have manufactured the appearance of widening concern over copyright piracy and growing evidence of its impact.
"It is not just that these reports all receive financial support from the same organizations and…
Readers pay for publishers’ protection
Tue, Jun 09 2009Joshua Gans seems to agree with me that access to low-cost Kindle e-books is one reason to get rid of the ban on competitive ('parallel') import of books.
"So why is it possible for hard copies of books to move across international borders but not electronic copies? The answer is that publishers, who have intellectual monopolies over these works, for their own reasons have not done the deals to…
Was the Pirate Bay judgement biassed?
Wed, Apr 29 2009A Swedish Court's conviction of the principals in Pirate Bay, a bit-torrent site that facilitated sharing of copyright material may be only the first step in a significant case on digital copyright abuse.
The decision will likely have no impact on the sharing of copyright material. There are hundreds of torrent aggregators and probably thousands of different ways to disguise the sharing of digital…
French internet law blocked, for now
Fri, Apr 10 2009In a coup de théâtre, the opponents of the internet surveillance bill managed to block it in the Senate on 9 April. But not for long, it seems:
"L'UMP semble vouloir effacer cet affront en faisant revoter au plus vite le projet de loi. 'Le vote négatif de l'Assemblée nationale retarde l'adoption du texte, ça ne le bloque pas. On va repasser le texte avec une lecture à l'Assemblée et une lecture…
Piracy and privacy
Thu, Apr 09 2009Although the governments negotiating the ACTA treaty deny that it will propose sanctions for personal copyright violation, there's an increasing supply of that sort of thing, from those same governments.
The French Assemblée Nationale is today expected to adopt a uniquely invasive measure authorizing a 'High Authority' to monitor the Internet use of individuals for copyright violation.
"The law…
Summary of the copyright trade agreement
Wed, Apr 08 2009The participants in the proposed Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)—one of the few plurilateral (non-regional) trade agreements ever negotiated outside the multilateral trade framework of GATT and WTO—have lifted the veil of secrecy surrounding their negotiations just a little by publishing a "Summary of key elements under discussion".
Although apparently intended to calm civil-liberties…
A ‘secret’ copyright treaty
Thu, Jun 05 2008In February this year, the Australian government joined negotiations with a number of other developed economies on a proposed ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The "negotiations"—if that's what they are, they seem more like a drafting convention—are being conducted behind closed doors in Geneva. There has been little information from the Australian government on the benefits for…
New Zealand copyright reform
Fri, Apr 11 2008Is it too soon to hope the tide is turning against the abuse of copyright privilege at last? A report of consumer-friendly copyright reform that preserves fair dealing rights, from across the Tasman:
“Unlike the DMCA in the US, the new [New-Zealand] law allows people to bypass DRM if the intended use is legitimate, it explicitly allows format shifting and timeshifting, and it refuses to protect…