Thursday, June 02, 2005
Four quick pointers this morning
Four quick pointers to other peoples' interesting stuff this morning:
- Copyright: For those following the Kazaa/Grokster/are P2P software providers liable for secondary infringement of copyright debate, a fascinating post (with the promise of more to come) over at The Patry Copyright Blog about the machinations behind the development of the majority/minority judgments in the US Supreme Court decision in Sony Corp v Universal City Studios (the Betamax decision);
- Copyright 2: Rothnie again - has noted that on 27 May 2005, the Attorney General's Department released a Discussion Paper (pdf) seeking views on whether certain types of unauthorised access to subscription broadcast services that are not currently criminal offences should be made criminal offences. They're not particularly serious about wanting feedback it seems - the date for responses is 17 June 2005.
The short timeline may have something to do with Article 17.7.1 of the FTA with the US, which says that we will make it a criminal offence 'wilfully to receive and make use of, or further distribute, a programme-carrying signal that originated as an encrypted programme-carrying satellite signal knowing that it has been decoded without the authorisation of the lawful distributor of the signal'. As the Parliamentary Library paper noted at the time the USFTA Implementation Act was being passed, this always looked like a bit of a gap in our implementation of the FTA. On the other hand, criminalising things that may happen in the home looks, frankly, nasty and unnecessary until real damage is proved. Of course, I've not read the paper yet - perhaps they have proved such damage.
- Patents: Warwick Rothnie notes that the Australian Government has responded (pdf) to the ACIP Report on Patents for Business Systems (pdf). I'll comment more on this one when I get a moment;
- Free Trade Agreements: Yesterday, the inimitable Peter Drahos gave a paper here at the University of Melbourne Law School (jointly organised by IPRIA and the Centre for Comparative and International Law) on the Dispute Settlement implications of the bilateral 'web' of FTAs currently being created around the world. Drahos' interest is in what the effect of the proliferating Dispute Settlement Mechanisms, and choice of forum clauses in those agreements is for weaker players. The paper is available online at the moment here (pdf). It's worth a read if you are interested in the effects of the growing, complex web of FTAs - in which Australia is such an enthusiastic participant right now.
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