[Infoecon] Draft letter on copyright & the Australia-US "Free Trade" Agreement

[Peter Eckersley]

On Tue, May 06, 2003 at 12:59:28PM +1000, Alan Blair wrote:
 
> I applaud you for taking action on this.
> 
> There is something I would like to ask about the chipping issue:
> I thought one of the main purposes of "mod chipping" was to modify
> equipment so that it can play DVDs and computer games which are
> available in the US but not currently available in Australia
> at the same price. If there is a free trade agreement between
> the US and Australia, surely this would no longer be necessary
> (but maybe there are other purposes to the procedure?)
> 

It isn't a guarantee of free trade; it's a "bilateral trade agreement".  It
will cover quite specific issues about particular regulation in particular
markets.  "Free trade" is in the eye of the beholder.

DVDs and computer games which are region-coded are not a result of public
sector tariffs or trade barriers.  Rather, they are the result of
private regulation using technology, contracts, and often patents or
copyright (the intention of this regulation is to be able to charge different
prices in different markets, or to stagger release dates).

To my knowledge, the only thing issue in the negotiations which could affect
region coding is anti-circumvention rules, and these are going to make region
coding stronger.

-- 
Peter Eckersley
Department of Computer Science   &                  mailto:pde at cs.mu.oz.au 
IP Research Institute of Australia             http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~pde
The University of Melbourne