The main purpose of this blog was to track the changes to New Zealand’s copyright laws, relating specifically to the introduction of legislation designed to curtail piracy on the internet. The coverage was in no way as comprehensive as it should have been, especially from the end of October 2009. However it was an attempt to provide some background on the proposed copyright law changes and follow the legislative processes and debate around the new copyright laws in New Zealand.
In 2001 the Ministry of Economic Development – under the Labour government – ordered a review of the outdated Copyright Act 1994. The rational for the review was to update the law so it would address internet piracy and technological changes which were not covered by the 1994 Act. The final result was The Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 which came into effect on 31 October 2008. There was a public backlash to a clause in the Act – Section 92a – which required ISPs to disconnect those accused of infringing copyright after three warnings.
92A Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
“(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
“(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
No judicial process was factored into the clause for those accused of copyright infringement. Public concern led to ‘The Blackout Protest’ in February 2009 – led by the Creative Freedom Foundation of New Zealand and several bloggers – ended in a march on parliament. In response to the National government delayed the law so ISPs could work out a code of conduct that intended to address public concerns with Section 92a. This was unsuccessful because Telstra Clear refused to take part in the drafting of the code, sighting flaws within the law and the effects that would be passed on to their customers.
The law was indefinitely delayed in March 2009 when John Key announced the law would be redrafted by Minister of Commerce and Justice Simon Power and officials.
In July 2009 Minister Simon Power released a discussion document – the Section 92A Review Policy Proposal Document. The document took several months to complete and was undertaken by a working group, including experts in the fields of intellectual property and internet law and officials from the Ministry of Economic Development. In the proposal document a three-phase process is outlined which would give those accused of copyright infringement recourse through a mediator, The Copyright Tribunal.
1) Where there has been suspected infringement, rights-holders could complain to the internet service provider (ISP) which would notify the subscriber. If there was further infringement, a cease-and-desist order would be sent.
2) If there was further infringement, the rights-holder could apply to the Copyright Tribunal for an order to obtain the subscriber’s name and contact details.
3) The rights-holder could then serve an infringement notice. The subscriber could elect mediation. If that failed or there was no response, the tribunal would convene, and could impose penalties ranging from fines to termination of a user’s internet account.
Reaction to the reviewed proposal was mixed. Although it was agreed that the proposal was a marked improvement on the original Section 92a, The Creative Freedom Foundation, Internet NZ, Labour’s spokesperson for communication and IT Clare Curran and others argued disconnection from the internet was still too harsh a punishment. Public submissions on the proposal document were called for.
In a blog-post Labour’s spokesperson for Communications and Information Technology Clare Curran criticized the National Government for rushing the redraft of Section 92a. In the post on Labour’s Red Alert blog Curran questions the effectiveness of disconnecting copyright infringers. She suggests financial penalties as a more appropriate punishment.
To provide some context on the habits of younger overseas internet users a post was made on a report by the European Commission. The report found that one in three young people (33%), aged 16-24 prefer not to pay for downloadable music and video content. The report also found that 10% of the same age bracket had paid for online content. The relevance of this report reveals the size of the issue governments around the world were (and still are) trying to address. There are some clear differences in attitudes between older and younger internet users regarding piracy and more generally the sharing of digital information.
A study undertaken in the UK by Chief Economist Will Page at PRS for Musica UK group (which collects royalties) found that despite the prevalence of P2P illegal downloading music revenues in the UK had increased in 2008 by 4.7%. The study showed that music sales had declined but concert ticket sales had increased and the UK was in good health.
Back in New Zealand The Creative Freedom Foundation were encouraging the public to make submissions on the Section 92a Review Policy Proposal. The Creative Freedom Foundation outlined the issues they had with the proposal – highlighting their belief that the internet is a necessity and disconnection from it for copyright infringement would be an unfair punishment. The Foundation suggested reasonable fines as an alternative. The inclusion of the Copyright Tribunal as mediator, providing judicial process for accused infringers was supported by the Foundation.
The British government announces a crack down on internet piracy. The planned law changes were included in the Queen’s autumn speech. Business Secretary Lord Mandelson was said to have been persuaded to implement tougher laws to curb illegal file sharing by a lobby group campaign supported by prominent people from the music and film industries. Proposed punishments included a fine of up to £50,000 (NZ$121,000) and ‘severe restrictions on internet access.’ With one in twelve people (seven million people) estimated to be involved in illegal downloading it was no surprise that a political party was formed – the Pirate Party UK. This followed soon after the Swedish Pirate Party won a seat in European parliament in June.
Within a week of the Pirate Party UK received as many as 100 members per hour after announcing they would be running in the next general election. A month later the Pirate Party UK had more supporters on Facebook than the incumbent Labour Party.
TV3’s consumer watchdog show Target was criticized by the Creative Freedom Foundation for presenting one side of the online copyright infringement debate in an episode on piracy and illegal downloading.
So what happened in New Zealand after submissions on the Section 92a Review Proposal closed?
Here are some things which should have been included in this blog to update what has happened in New Zealand.
In September 2009 the Ministry of Economic Development released a summary of the 113 submissions that were made on the Section 92a Proposal Document. 40 submissions came from industry organisations. There was general support for the proposal, but some submissions raised concerns about disconnecting copyright infringers from the internet.
On 16 December 2009 Commerce Minister Simon Power released a Cabinet Paper which outlined the new copyright legislation following the review of Section 92a of the Copyright Act. In the paper the government favours a three-notice (three strikes) process to deal with illegal downloading.
Minister Simon Power introduced the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill on February 23, 2010. The Bill will repeal Section 92a of the Copyright Act 1994. The Act comes into force on 1 October 2010.
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First of all I’d like to thank everyone that checked out my blog and thanks to those that left a comment or two.
On the July 7, 2009, I added the first post to this blog. The primary purpose of the blog was to meet the requirements of the Whitieria Journalism School programme – start a blog and regularly update it. Well this sounded pretty straight forward, but it wasn’t always. In fact the blog slowed to a halt in November last year and consequently it was hard to jump-start it again. Time was a factor and other interests, mainly photography, took up allot of spare time. That aside, it was a bit of an experiment that I mostly enjoyed and I learnt some damn good skills. I salute all the bloggers out there that maintain blogs – it takes a great deal of commitment.
What I would say is blog about something you’re really interested in. The subject of this blog was the changes to copyright legislation in New Zealand, mainly the issues around Section 92a and the redraft. I also looked at what is at the heart of this debate, illegal downloading in one word piracy. This was of interest to me, but I think I actually preferred to read about it, rather than blog about it.
I also made a number of other posts which interested me. On the way I discovered, Archives NZ on the web and Wikileaks, currently struggling to continue their services – give them a donation if you can. If you have some time check out Vanguard Journalism, they always have some great videos that address global issues. The Creative Freedom Foundation of NZ is also worth checking out. As for the Newzbie Video YouTube channel, created to accompany this blog, it was very difficult to maintain, I’m blaming that on learning shorthand.
So I would say if you’re going to blog, pick something(s) and update regularly. It’s probably a good idea to interact with other bloggers – something I didn’t do much of.
I will be using the things I learnt here to create a photography blog. There are enough of them around already but what’s another one to the blogosphere.
