US Steps Down On Australian Copyright Demands

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

22 August 2003

The United States has backed away from plans to harmonise copyright legislation between the US and Australia as part of the free trade agreement under discussion, acknowledging that attempts to put an immediate intellectual property agreement in place may be 'a bridge too far'.

However, speaking this week, chief of the US Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration, Grant Aldonas suggested that it should not be a difficult objective to achieve in the future:

'It shouldn't be much of a reach to get to the point where there are almost uniform laws,' The Australian newspaper quoted Under-secretary Aldonas as observing, continuing: 'We all agreed to the WTO principles - the question is, can we harmonise them?'

The United States has reportedly raised concerns with regard to Australia's parallel importation legislation, and also about the 'relatively low priority' assigned by the Commonwealth's police force to the enforcement of copyright law.

However, he revealed that copyright laws have not been standardised between the United States and neighbouring Canada, despite the fact that a free trade agreement has been in place between the two countries for more than 16 years.

'Both Australia and the US have a high standard of intellectual property protection. Are there things we would want to achieve? Yes. Would I make a lot out of it? No,' he concluded.

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