US-Australia FTA: 17.4.7 (Anti-Circumvention)

  1. In order to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms, use in connection with the exercise of their rights and that restrict unauthorized acts in respect of their works, performances, and phonograms, each Party shall provide that any person who:

    1. knowingly, or having reasonable grounds to know, circumvents without authority any effective technological measure that controls access to a protected work, performance or phonogram, or other subject matter; or

    2. manufactures, imports, distributes, offers to the public, provides, or otherwise traffics in devices, products, or components, or offers to the public, or provides services, which:

      1. are promoted, advertised, or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of any effective technological measure, or
      2. have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent any effective technological measure, or
      3. are primarily designed, produced, or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of any effective technological measure;

  2. shall be liable and subject to the remedies provided for in Article 17.11.13. Each Party shall provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied where any person, is found to have engaged wilfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or financial gain in the above activities. Each Party may provide that such criminal procedures and penalties do not apply to a nonprofit library, archive, educational institution, or public noncommercial broadcasting entity.

  3. Effective technological measure means any technology, device or component that, in the normal course of its operation, controls access to a protected work, performance, phonogram, or other subject matter, or protects any copyright.

  4. In implementing subparagraph 7(a), neither Party is obligated to require that the design of, or the design and selection of parts and components for, a consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing product provide for a response to any particular technological measure, so long as such product does not otherwise violate any provisions implementing subparagraph 7(a).

  5. Each Party shall provide that a violation of provisions implementing the provisions of this paragraph is a separate civil or criminal offence and independent of any infringement that might occur under the Party's law on copyright.

  6. Each Party shall confine exceptions to any provisions implementing subparagraph 7(a) to the following activities, which shall be applied to relevant provisions in accordance with subparagraph 7(f):

    1. non-infringing reverse engineering activities with regard to a lawfully obtained copy of a computer program, carried out in good faith with respect to particular elements of that computer program that have not been readily available to the person engaged in such activity, for the sole purpose of achieving interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs;

    2. non-infringing good faith activities, carried out by an appropriately qualified researcher who has lawfully obtained a copy, unfixed performance or display of a work, performance or phonogram and who has made a good faith effort to obtain authorization for such activities, to the extent necessary for the sole purpose of identifying and analysing flaws and vulnerabilities of technologies for scrambling and descrambling of information;

    3. the inclusion of a component or part for the sole purpose of preventing the access of minors to inappropriate online content in a technology, product, service, or device that itself is not prohibited under the measures implementing subparagraph 7(a)(ii);

    4. non-infringing good faith activities that are authorized by the owner of a computer, computer system, or computer network for the sole purpose of testing, investigating, or correcting the security of that computer, computer system, or computer network;

    5. non-infringing activities for the sole purpose of identifying and disabling a capability to carry out undisclosed collection or dissemination of personally identifying information reflecting the online activities of a natural person in a way that has no other effect on the ability of any person to gain access to any work;

    6. lawfully authorized activities carried out by government employees, agents, or contractors for the purpose of law enforcement, intelligence, essential security or similar government activities;

    7. access by a nonprofit library, archive, or educational institution to a work, performance or phonogram not otherwise available to it, for the sole purpose of making acquisition decisions; and

    8. non-infringing uses of a work, performance or phonogram in a particular class of works, performances or phonograms, when an actual or likely adverse impact on those non-infringing uses is credibly demonstrated in a legislative or administrative review or proceeding; provided that any such review or proceeding is conducted at least once every four years from the date of conclusion of such review or proceeding.

  7. The exceptions to any provisions implementing subparagraph 7(a) for the activities set forth in subparagraph 7(e) may only be applied as follows, and only to the extent that they do not impair the adequacy of legal protection or the effectiveness of legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures:

    1. Any provisions implementing subparagraph 7(a)(i) may be subject to exceptions and limitations with respect to each activity set forth in subparagraph 7(e).

    2. Any provisions implementing subparagraph 7(a)(ii) as they apply to effective technological measures that control access to a work, performance or phonogram may be subject to exceptions and limitations with respect to activities set forth in subparagraph 7(e)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv), and (vi).

    3. Any provisions implementing subparagraph 7(a)(ii), as they apply to effective technological measures that protect any copyright, may be subject to exceptions and limitations with respect to the activities set forth in subparagraph (e)(i) and (vi).


Rusty Russell
Last modified: Sun Jul 18 06:39:05 EST 2004