as essential to the continuation of the U.S.-Australia alliance. The government relied on estimates of the economic benefits of the FTA computed by the Centre for International Economics, a consultancy group. The leading group supporting the FTA was called Austa. Austa's arguments focused on the dynamic benefits of integration with the U.S. economy. Opposition Criticisms of the FTA appeared from a number of sources and on a number of grounds: Trade diversion Economic theory suggests that bilateral agreements like the FTA will lead to trade creation between the parties directly involved, but will also cause trade diversion from third countries, offsetting any benefits. Bilateral agreements may also undermine multilateral agreements such as those associated with the World Trade Organization. Partly as a result of these factors, the estimates of benefits produced by the CIE and relied on by the government were disputed by most economists who made submissions to the Senate Committees inquiring into the topic, some of whom concluded that the agreement would reduce Australia's economic welfare. Intellectual property The provisions of the AUSFTA in Ch 17 required Australia to offer stronger protection to American intellectual property. In particular, the minimum term of copyright was extended to 70 years after the author's death. Most economists and others interested in intellectual property issues regarded this as undesirable. A number of prominent American economists took the same view in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft. Other key changes included: special copyright term extension for photographs broader definition of technological protection measures, narrow exceptions, and review process protection of temporary copies stronger protection of electronic rights management information protection of pay television broadcasts safe harbour provisions for Internet Service Providers protection of performers' economic and moral rights in respect of sound recordings broader civil and criminal offences For a discussion of the copyright changes, see Rimmer, M. "Robbery Under Arms: Copyright Law and the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement" Local content provisions Many in the Australian film and television community expressed concern over the effect of the agreement on government regulations enforcing a mandatory minimum of locally produced content on television. Since American content can be purchased by networks at a cost far less than the local production of Australian content, fears were raised that the agreement would result in the diminishing fraction of home-grown media being screened on Australian television networks and in Australian cinemas being reduced even further. As a