sweet f (t) a

Tim Wu, who I think is guest blogging over at Lawrence Lessig's blog posted about the FTA. Even though I'm not sure if I understand all they are talking about yet it is interesting to see at least a passing reference to the FTA on a USA site and a number of comments.

Last week I was chatting with a friend who now works on the House Ways and Means Committee. Talk turned to the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement, which Congress passed in July and which President Bush ratified yesterday.

“That DMCA and copyright term extension stuff,” he said to me, “None of it was really seen as controversial.”

“Some people consider it controversial” I said.

“I’m sure you’re right, and that’s what I thought” he said, “But we only got letters from the library people.” A pause. “Its become a standard clause, and doesn’t really get much attention. If people care about it, they need to do more.” He’s right. Years of DMCA & term extension criticism can easily boil down to “not controversial.” [..read more comments...]