[LINK] Lessig in Canberra

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Tom Worthington wrote:

> At 7/14/2004 09:07 AM, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>
>> ... Lawrence Lessig, who will make an 11th-hour appearance before the 
>> Senate committee ... Did anyone hear him?  Did it happen? ...
>
>
> He gets a mention in Catherine Raffaele's submission "Free Trade 
> Agreement could stop Australians from using "Happy Birthday"":


Which submission, regrettably, propagates the notion that the FTA 
commits Australia to retrospectively withdrawing works from the public 
domain. Such arguments, because they can be seen erronious from the text 
of the FTA, do nothing to help convince the Senate committee that 
there's a genuine problem.

There is no commitment under the FTA for Australia to pass laws 
"reclaiming" copyright works over which ownership has already expired.

RC

>
> "Lawrence Lessig is the Stanford law professor who led the 
> unsuccessful Supreme Court challenge. He chillingly notes in his new 
> book, Free Culture, that while a million patents are set to pass into 
> the US public domain in the next 20 years, no copyrights are now set 
> to do so." 
> <http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/freetrade_ctte/submissions/sub422.pdf>. 
>
>
>
>
> Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
> Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
> http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
> Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University
> Publications Director, Australian Computer Society
>
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