[Ecommerce] Earlier story on Australian/US copyright talks

[James Love]

US backs down on copyright
Simon Hayes
AUGUST 21, 2003
US TRADE officials have backed off from a tough line on music, movie and
software piracy, admitting that shoehorning Australia into a copyright
regime based on criminal law may be "a bridge too far".

Under heavy lobbying from the US entertainment and software industries,
the Office of the US Trade Representative had listed the harmonisation
of copyright legislation among issues to be raised with Australian
negotiators for the Free Trade Agreement. But the head of the US
Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration,
Undersecretary Grant Aldonas, said America would not be pushing too hard
on intellectual property during the current negotiations.

"It shouldn't be much of a reach to get to the point where there are
almost uniform laws," he said. "We all agreed to the WTO principles -
the question is, can we harmonise them?"

Mr Aldonis' comments came despite the US raising concerns about parallel
importation legislation in its 2003 Foreign Trade Barriers report.
Parallel importation permits the importation of a product by a person
other than the local authorised distributor.

The US Trade Representative warned parallel importation had led to
increasing piracy of DVDs and VCDs.



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The report also highlighted the "relatively low priority" assigned by
Australian state and federal police to the enforcement of copyright law,
a topic US officials are understood to be concerned about.

But Mr Aldonas said the US was concerned with "more subtle things" like
patent protections, and said Australia already had fairly tough civil
copyright laws.

The Australian understands the recent Australian Federal Court decision
on "mod chipping" satisfied one key concern - circumvention devices -
raised in the Foreign Trade Barriers report.

"Both Australia and the US have a high standard of intellectual property
protection," Mr Aldonas said. "Are there things we would want to
achieve? Yes. Would I make a lot out of it? No."

He said the US and Canada had not harmonised copyright laws, despite
signing a free trade agreement 16 years ago.

He said getting an immediate agreement in place on intellectual property
"might be a bridge too far".

Toughening Australia's copyright regime would be "as much to the benefit
of artists here as in the US".

The Australian Government is reviewing the 2001 Digital Agenda legislation.

--
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
http://www.cptech.org, mailto:james.love@cptech.org
tel. +1.202.387.8030, mobile +1.202.361.3040