US pressure on intellectual property in Free Trade Talks
Yes, it's started (actually, I guess, it started a while ago but is sufficiently public now to have made the newspapers): the US is taking an aggressive stance in relation to Australia's intellectual property laws. Looks like they want something similar to the DMCA rather than our - dare I say more balanced - Digital Agenda reforms to copyright. Interestingly, what has made the news is not the extension of copyright terms (a la the Eldred case, which I blogged previously) but the US push for ISPs to be held liable for copyright infringements. The fact that this has made news is likely due to comments from the ISP industry here who no doubt are NOT going to want a Verizon-style regime here, where copyright owners can get the identity of users from ISPs without subpoenas, and where, more importantly, ISPs are liable if they don't remove material once notified by copyright owners. This has been discussed in Australia before but is, no doubt, back on the agenda so we can try to sell our lamb and other products. Ah, free trade agreements. The one thing the US dangles in front of anyone whose laws aren't quite up to scratch. Ironic given AUstralia's usual pro-IP stance in international negotiations. We seem to have been a fairly valuable ally in those negotiations over time; it's a shame that won't be at all relevant.