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There is no example of a free trade agreement between a huge economy and a small one being of ultimate benefit to the smaller economy. The historical evidence is that ultimately the large economy exploits the smaller, taking what it wants and leaving little in return other than a lost culture.
Unfortunately, we have no reason to believe the FTA between the US and Australia will be any different. There might be short term gains in some areas, but the losses will undeniably outweigh any benefits in the longer term.
Of special concern is the use of the legal system by huge companies in the US, whereby they institute legal proceedings against a smaller competitor so that the cost of defending the action (however unworthy the case might be) will bankrupt the small company. The small (read "Australian") company has two options - comply or go out of business. What the hell - compliance will put them out of business, anyway!
Another serious issue is that the US Patent Office is run as a profit-making concern. So if you are sufficiently wealthy (read "Corporate America") you can hire a team of lawyers to obtain a patent for any silly thing you want, so as to apply coercive conditions on competitors. Microsoft has successfully applied for a patent on initiating a software program by double-clicking a mouse button!
Copyright, which was originally designed to protect and thereby encourage innovation, is now used to inhibit competition and prevent inventiveness adversely affecting one's dominant market position.
Our developing South Australian open source software industry is very worried indeed about the entrenching of such practices in Australia through the FTA.
Here is a part of the US view of the FTA, repeated here because of its importance.
"A Trade Agreement for the Digital Age: U.S. and Australian authors, performers, inventors, and other producers of creative material will benefit from the higher and extended standards the FTA requires for protecting intellectual property rights such as copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets and enhanced means for enforcing those rights. The agreement calls for each government to adopt state-of-the-art protection for digital products such as software, music, text, and videos, and encourages adoption of measures to promote trade through electronic commerce."
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http://australianit.news.com.au
Big FTA stoush brewing on copyright James Riley JUNE 29, 2004
A FULL-SCALE political stoush is brewing over intellectual property provisions in the Australia-US free trade agreement following the passage of enabling legislation last week.
Information on the FTA has been tightly controlled by the Howard Government since a draft was released after year-long negotiations, and interest groups are champing at the bit to push their views.
The open source movement in Australia is leaving nothing to chance in making sure its opposition to the FTA is heard loud and clear in Canberra. Linux Australia is funding a flying visit to Australia by US constitutional lawyer and intellectual property guru Lawrence Lessig, who will make an 11th-hour appearance before the Senate committee considering the matter. Professor Lessig is an outspoken critic of the US system of patents, of copyright extension, and of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
He argues that an FTA that seeks to "harmonise" Australia's IP laws with those of the US is poor public policy because the US has an inferior system.
[...]
"He's [Professor Lessig] acceptable to many in the US, so I thought it would be a good idea to get him to talk to some Australian politicians, who really haven't twigged to just how much these changes to IP law are going to cost," said corporate IT consultant Dan Shearer, an active participant in the open source community, and prominent member of the Linux User Group of South Australia.
[...]
Many in the IT industry are concerned that the Government does not understand how much changes to IP will cost Australia.
[...]
Senator Lundy (Shadow IT minister) also complained that reports from the US last week suggested the US Congress was planning to amend the FTA before ratifying the document, even though it had been "sold" in Australia as a take-it-or-leave-it deal.
"Why are we getting so tangled up in this take-it-or-leave stuff?" Lundy said.
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Here is part of a submission to the federal government concerning copyright - especially software copyright.
Source: http://www.linux.org.au/fta/testimony/
Small to medium businesses, as many open source companies are in Australia currently, would be unwise to compete in these perfectly legitimate areas, because larger competitors can use these new powers against them. Open source is particularly vulnerable. As a rapidly growing but relatively new industry with low barriers to entry, we see many small companies being established to distribute, support and create open source software. I would point out that software is an area where the majority of established players are large American multinationals with significant resources and well established reputations for, shall we say, aggressive competition and litigation.
I would remind you that the open source Linux operating system is predicted to overtake Microsoft Windows and server shipments in the next two to three years, but it started as one Finnish university student's spare time project. The open source Samba software, which is used by millions of people on Windows to access the Linux service, started as a project by a procrastinating PhD student right here in Canberra. In fact, most of the best of breed open source projects is infrastructure you use every day, probably without knowing it, and which powers Australian business.
These were once small concerns with a few people who could have been easily stopped while they were still small by legal uncertainty or threats such as these. Open source is particularly important to Australia because we are good at it. We develop it, we distribute it, and our expertise gives Australian business a competitive advantage over international competitors--not just IT business but all businesses that use IT. The Boston Consulting Group in a survey a few years ago found that eight per cent of open source developers are in Australia--hugely disproportionate to our population. We are in a prime position to take advantage of the growth opportunities provided by these projects, especially the benefits of better, more open infrastructure that open source provides.
[...]
I want to note at this point that a bill has been proposed in the United States. It is called the Digital Media Consumers Rights Act and it includes this clarification, among others: that copyright is about copying and you have a right to access legally purchased works.
Unfortunately, Australia is not allowed to follow this part of the Digital Agenda Review recommendation 17, under clause 17.4.7 of the treaty. In the area of effective technological measures we are only allowed certain exceptions, and this is not one of them. We are bound--and, as I am told this is the opportunity of a generation, I guess we are bound to these laws for a generation.
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In similar vein, look at this:
Subject:
After six months of closed-door discussions the Government has finally revealed it has received requests from 22 countries to open up Australian service industries to foreign competition. The full text of the media release from Craig Emerson - Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Trade follows:
MEDIA RELEASE
ISSUED: 15 January 2003
SECRETIVE GATS NEGOTIATIONS AN INSULT TO THE PUBLIC
Today's release of a Government discussion paper on the GATS is an insult to the Australian public. After six months of closed-door discussions the Government has finally
revealed it has received requests from 22 countries to open up Australian service industries to foreign competition. Yet these requests were received by the Government more than six months ago and have been hidden from the public. They include requests in areas vital to the job security of Australian families such as education, health, postal, telecommunications, energy, transport and film and television services. The requests also appear to threaten the public provision of affordable education, health, telephone, postal and transport services.
Belatedly the Government, facing a Labor-initiated Senate Inquiry into its secretive handling of the GATS negotiations, is giving the public only a few weeks to comment before it lodges its offer in response to these requests.
Labor is calling on the Government not to make any firm offers under the GATS until the Senate Inquiry has been completed and the public has been properly consulted.
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Here is a copy of a recent e-mail conversation on the LinuxSA mailing list. The participants discuss deceitful US practices which JH condones. Are you aware of the dangers of "free" - but loaded - giveaways?
PLEASE don't support the US/Australia Free Trade Agreement!
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> Anyone watching Lateline on ABC?
> They showed a Mr. Bill Gates (in the company of our PM, John Howard - Ed) promising to donate money to provide information technology to the disadvantaged.
> > Heh. They can't afford his overpriced software, so he might as well give it to them. At least he's doing something...
> There's another side to it and its the same political move as when he 'donated' copies of windows to schools to settle one of the monopoly lawsuits a little while ago.
> It just doesn't make sense to on the one hand accuse the company of being an illegal monopoly and on the other hand agree to expand that monopoly even further to teach windows to kids...
> I suspect a similar move is taking place here, although there is merit in what he's doing - but in any case, its putting windows where it wasn't before, and expanding the monopoly...
> they need software to run on windows don't they - and after paying for that, who's going to switch to another OS? (i would guess that the disadvantaged people only use the computers, they are unlikely to be the ones that configure and manage them)
> sounds generous of them but its really another way to do what they've been doing all along...
> I've got nothing against helping people, but why not give them the money and let them choose ..... oh..did i say 'choose' ?
There was an article somewhere about piracy in China. Bill Gates was quoted assaying something like (paraphrasing) "If they're pirating software, we want them to be pirating ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then later on we'll find out how to cash in."
So it's really a ploy to get these kids addicted to MS Crack (tm). Growing mindshare from Linux installations for poorer people is a threat to Bill's business. Billionaire's don't get out of bed unless it's to make more money.
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One really is entitled to ask whose interests our federal government politicians are serving by open our market to predators like this.