Donna Wentworth at Copyfight reports that the U.S. has signed a trade agreement with Singapore that requires the U.S. to refrain from repealing the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This looks suspiciously like an end-run around the legislative process.
One complaint about the DMCA has been that it holds back the development of technology in the U.S., and thereby weakens our competitive position against other countries’ technology industries. The obvious solution to this kind of self-inflicted competitiveness problem is to repeal the offending law. It looks like our trade representatives have hit upon another plan: convince other countries to hold back their technology industries too.
