Exporting The Worst Of Copyright Law

from the there-they-go-again dept

While free trade agreements can often be a good thing, it looks like a variety of lobbyists from the entertainment and software industry have successfully included the demand that countries agreeing to the new Central American Free Trade Agreement also agree to the worst of our intellectual property laws -- basically exporting software patents, the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision, and the excessive length of copyrights to Central America. This isn't all that surprising, but as the article above notes, that's basically because the lobbyists can paint a one-sided picture of why those things are necessary, without anyone explaining the other side. There still is almost no one in our government who seems to actually understand the issues related to intellectual property, and how such laws are being repeatedly abused.