[Linux-aus] WIPO internet treaties (was something else)

[Michael Still]

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004, Anthony Towns wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 07:30:58PM +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> > But a terrible thing has happened, that may prove to be an awesome
> > opportunity for LA (and possibly ACS, depending on their politics) to make
> > some angry yet positive noise about Australia selling out our potential to
> > the US.
> 
> >   http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/outcomes/08_intellectual_property.html
> 
> > Seriously scary stuff, that we *need* to address.
> 
> There's no details there to address, though. What there is is:
> 
>    a) Agreement to implement the WIPO Internet Treaties by entry
>       into force of the Free Trade Agreement

[snip]

> I don't know what (a)'s about. Could be important, could be trivial.

We're already signatories to a bunch of WIPO treaties. I wrote a bunch of 
the code which imports data from WIPO into the Australian Patent databases 
for instance.

http://www.wipo.org/freepublications/en/ecommerce/450/wipo_pub_l450in.pdf

Is a glossy about the relevant treaty. My favourite bit:

"The two treaties also break new ground by
requiring countries to provide not only the rights
themselves, but also two types of technological
adjuncts to the rights. These are intended to ensure
that rightholders can effectively use technology to
protect their rights and to license their works
online. The first, known as the anti-circumvention
provision, tackles the problem of hacking:
it requires countries to provide adequate legal
protection and effective remedies against the
circumvention of technological measures (such as
encryption) used by rightholders to protect their
rights when their creations are disseminated on
the Internet. The second type of technological
adjunct safeguards the reliability and integrity of
the online marketplace by requiring countries to
prohibit the deliberate alteration or deletion of
electronic rights management information: ..."

I've never really looked into the DMCA, because I figured my country 
didn't suck that much. How does this compare with the scheme in the US?

Cheers,
Mikal

-- 

Michael Still (mikal at stillhq.com) | "All my life I've had one dream,
http://www.stillhq.com            |  to achieve my many goals"
UTC + 11                          |    -- Homer Simpson