Rick Shera writes, “Until April this year, the Powers that be were doing a good job consulting on the replacement for the infamous three strikes s92A of the Copyright Act – several detailed rounds of consultation and a Bill that, whilst still flawed, did attempt to cure some of the worst excesses. But it all started to go awry in April. First off, seemingly because the Government had invoked urgency to debate Christchurch earthquake emergency legislation but wasn’t ready in the afternoon when urgency commenced, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill was plucked from the Parliamentary order paper. “Let’s fill up the time with that” they obviously thought. “It’s had a right going over so no-one is going to complain that they’re being caught by surprise – we don’t want a repeat of the s92A SOP debacle now do we”. After 2 years of careful deliberation, the Bill was passed under urgency and we had the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011 on the books in a few hours. Oh dear. I’m not saying a more considered debate would have made any difference, but the sight of MPs who had no knowledge of the legislation, let alone of the internet they were trying to regulate (Skynet anyone?!), was terribly embarrassing. Not only for the MPs themselves, but for New Zealand, as we were watched by international participants in this worldwide copyright debate.”
