Copyright lobbyists strike again (CAFTA)

[Eugene]

Copyright lobbyists strike again
August 1, 2005, 4:00 AM PT
By Declan McCullagh

Hollywood and large U.S. software companies chalked up another
crucial yet little-noticed victory last week with the final approval
of the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

You wouldn't know it from a political debate veering between labor
standards in Nicaragua and the evils of protectionism, but one major
section of CAFTA will export some of the more controversial sections
of U.S. copyright law.

Once it takes effect, CAFTA will require Costa Rica, the Dominican
Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to mirror the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act's broad prohibition on bypassing
copy-protection technology.

<snip>

The Central American nations participating in CAFTA must also:

• Permit software patents

• Extend copyright protection to "70 years after the author's death"

• Ban the "manufacture" or "export" of any hardware or software
that could decode encrypted satellite TV signals

• Offer "online public access to a reliable and accurate" WhoIs
database of domain name registration details

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