apathy maybe
10th February 2004, 08:45
Not only did the Govt. of Australia lie about sugar ("we will never ever have a GST") being in the FTA, they also let through crap changes to the copyright laws of this country. The law is all ready very nasty (not allowed to make a copy for personal usage (unlike in the USA) is a major thing (not that it stops anyone)).
What do people think of FreeTAs in general and this one in particular?
(If you want to do something about copyright issues write to your local senators, MPs and papers (esp. national ones). Feel free to use and change the letter below. Also sign up for the Yahoo Group copyrightaustralia (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/copyrightaustralia/) or email [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected])
Dear Senator,
Re: the FTA and IP
Copyright has been a dead issue in the media; we haven't heard much about it. And yet the length of copyright is quite important. The Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the USA would bring Australia's copyright laws into line with the US's. (Currently in Australia the copyright for a work stands at, the life of the author plus fifty years. (How this extra fifty years is supposed to help the author I don't know.)) This would have a detrimental effect on both ordinary citizens and companies that rely on public domain material (as less such material would be entering public domain). Ordinary people would suffer in many ways. Books (and songs, movies and other artworks) that are currently in copyright but due to become public domain in a few years would have another 20 years added to the length of copyright. Books (etc) currently in public domain (such as George Orwell’s classics, 1984 & Animal Farm for instance) would potentially come back into copyright. People have had and will continue to have trouble tracking down copyright owners of older materials. Artworks that would have been available to other artists to rework and reinvigorate would be put back into copyright. (It is ironic how many Disney films are based on public domain works - or in the case of The Jungle Book, came out one year after author Rudyard Kipling's copyright expired.) If we must extend copyright, let’s extend it to life plus 300 years (and make it retrospective) so that the Grimm Brothers descendants would be able to claim copyright on all their works. Or even make copyright for eternity. It encourages the artists for them to know that no one will ever rip off their work. Ever.
While copyright serves a worthwhile purpose in society, (that of protection of the author's right to obtain commercial benefit from valuable work, and more recently the protection of the author's general right to control how a work is used) it more along the lines of protecting large companies above and beyond what it was meant for. What is being proposed serves no good purpose to either society or artists. There are also social reasons to restrict copyright, it enables others to come along later, and create new works based on that work as Disney and others have done with the Grimm's fairy tales. After an artist is dead they have no need for reward, and yet their work continues to rake in money for companies such as Disney.
A web address that outlines the changes is http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/...l_property.html (http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/outcomes/08_intellectual_property.html)http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/...l_property.html (http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/outcomes/08_intellectual_property.html)
What do people think of FreeTAs in general and this one in particular?
(If you want to do something about copyright issues write to your local senators, MPs and papers (esp. national ones). Feel free to use and change the letter below. Also sign up for the Yahoo Group copyrightaustralia (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/copyrightaustralia/) or email [email protected] (http://mailto:[email protected])
Dear Senator,
Re: the FTA and IP
Copyright has been a dead issue in the media; we haven't heard much about it. And yet the length of copyright is quite important. The Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the USA would bring Australia's copyright laws into line with the US's. (Currently in Australia the copyright for a work stands at, the life of the author plus fifty years. (How this extra fifty years is supposed to help the author I don't know.)) This would have a detrimental effect on both ordinary citizens and companies that rely on public domain material (as less such material would be entering public domain). Ordinary people would suffer in many ways. Books (and songs, movies and other artworks) that are currently in copyright but due to become public domain in a few years would have another 20 years added to the length of copyright. Books (etc) currently in public domain (such as George Orwell’s classics, 1984 & Animal Farm for instance) would potentially come back into copyright. People have had and will continue to have trouble tracking down copyright owners of older materials. Artworks that would have been available to other artists to rework and reinvigorate would be put back into copyright. (It is ironic how many Disney films are based on public domain works - or in the case of The Jungle Book, came out one year after author Rudyard Kipling's copyright expired.) If we must extend copyright, let’s extend it to life plus 300 years (and make it retrospective) so that the Grimm Brothers descendants would be able to claim copyright on all their works. Or even make copyright for eternity. It encourages the artists for them to know that no one will ever rip off their work. Ever.
While copyright serves a worthwhile purpose in society, (that of protection of the author's right to obtain commercial benefit from valuable work, and more recently the protection of the author's general right to control how a work is used) it more along the lines of protecting large companies above and beyond what it was meant for. What is being proposed serves no good purpose to either society or artists. There are also social reasons to restrict copyright, it enables others to come along later, and create new works based on that work as Disney and others have done with the Grimm's fairy tales. After an artist is dead they have no need for reward, and yet their work continues to rake in money for companies such as Disney.
A web address that outlines the changes is http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/...l_property.html (http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/outcomes/08_intellectual_property.html)http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/...l_property.html (http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/outcomes/08_intellectual_property.html)