The USA—Australia Free Trade Agreement was one of several bilateral free trade agreements signed in the early to mid-2000s that explicitly incorporated free trade in digital content. This article argues that Australian policymakers failed to recognize the consequences of the agreement for national culture industries such as film, television and popular music. The agreement introduced a complex range of policy considerations. These included the circumvention of multilateral cultural policymaking and the US assertion of Intellectual Property Rights which reduced Australia’s ability to develop and enhance its culture industries in the face of the dominating power of US media, communications and entertainment industries.The result is digital determinism.The Free Trade Agreement negatively impacts national culture industries in the global networked context, reducing employment and creative opportunities for artists and producers, thereby challenging the human rights of workers in these sectors.
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