Australia will be required to adopt U.S. intellectual-property rules, including laws covering the “circumvention” of copy protection, and software patents that have alarmed advocates of open-source software, according to a trade agreement that President Bush signed on Tuesday.
Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard touted the agreement at a ceremony in the White House’s Rose Garden, saying it will eliminate many tariffs on manufactured goods and agricultural products between the two countries, which exchange $28 billion each year in goods and services.
A less-noticed section of the free-trade agreement deals with copyright.
“The agreement strengthens protections for intellectual property and promotes electronic commerce,” Bush said, before signing a bill committing the United States to the arrangement. “Our two nations are committed to the reduction of trade barriers and other restrictions that are keeping too much of the world from the kind of prosperity and opportunity that the developed world takes for granted.”
The agreement requires Australia to recognize software patents, to extend the duration of copyrighted works and to essentially adopt key portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That 1998 law has been attacked by computer scientists and open-source programmers in the United States as stifling innovation and outlawing legitimate activities like making a back-up copy of a legally purchased DVD.
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