The Australian Democrats warn against allowing the Free Trade Agreement to go down the American route of giving extraordinary power and privilege to giant software companies, which can then be used to stifle competition.
Democrats’ Information Technology spokesperson, Senator Brian Greig, says the proposal in the FTA to create 'harmonisation' of Australian and US patent law may simply be code for extending the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) into our jurisdiction.
“The DMCA is a highly controversial and draconian American law established by President Clinton in 1998 after intense lobbying from vested interests in the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America,” Senator Greig said.
“The DMCA gives powers to private corporations that in some ways are greater than the powers recently given to ASIO.
“The DMCA, along with software patents in the US, have seen the major software companies in that country frustrate and block smaller companies and IT research teams, by using the law to threaten and financially exhaust any competition,” Senator Greig said.
“By tying up competitors in the courts with claims of software patent infringement, major IT companies are abusing the legal and democratic processes to crush their opposition with the exceptional powers available to them through the DMCA.
“The DMCA is a tool for big business dominance and not a protective measure for free enterprise. Australia must reject adopting any aspects of this outrageous law and not give up our existing copyright laws for the American model and its software patents,” Senator Greig said.
In December last year, Mr Richard Clarke, head of the White House Office of Cyberspace Security called for the amendment of the DMCA, because of its’ ‘chilling effect on [cyber-space] vulnerability research’.
“We must maintain our intellectual property sovereignty in this area. If 'harmonisation' means adopting US standards and the DMCA, then we are selling out Australia’s successful proliferation of small and medium-sized software companies to the multinational giants, and stepping on civil liberties in the process,” Senator Greig said.
Senator Greig says it is alarming that the full details of the FTA will not be known for at least two more weeks.
|
