This morning Fair Deal international had a press briefing. The coalition is announced its expanded international network amidst the TPP negotiations in Lima, Peru, and the expanded coalition consists of organisations from six of the twelve negotiating countries.

The briefing was MC’ed by TUANZ CEO Paul Brislen. Bronwyn Holloway-Smith spoke of how the TPP may affect New Zealand artists. Read on for a transcript of Bronwyn’s brief speech at the event.

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You might not know it but New Zealand has a ban on commercial parallel importing of DVDs that were bought legally overseas. Australia doesn’t have a ban, and neither does the U.S. When the government previously reviewed the ban in 2008 their own studies showed that the argument for retaining the ban was “weak” but despite that it was maintained. Recently MBIE called for submissions [PDF] again on parallel importing and we responded [PDF].

The restriction limits our access to legitimate copies of works that our peers in the rest of the world are already discussing, dissecting, and deriving new ideas from. It leaves us behind the curve, but without an offsetting benefit to the New Zealand creative sector.

New Zealand artists can import movies for non-commercial use (e.g. from Amazon), albeit at an additional cost that a commercial importer could avoid through economies of scale. This effectively prices many films out of reach, or it puts additional costs on New Zealanders who will send their money offshore (with a corresponding loss of tax revenue to the New Zealand government, which supports New Zealand artists through entities such as the New Zealand Film Commission).

If the public cannot, for example, legally obtain current material in a timely manner, then they may become skeptical of copyright law as a whole – if there are no suitable legal options then people will be more likely to use illicit channels. Maintaining a ban on commercial parallel importing decreases the supply of legal alternatives which affects all artists, not just individuals seeking to create market segmentation by controlling distribution.

Read our full submission here [150KB, PDF].

Historically publishers tried to restrict the resale price of second-hand books by putting a notice specifying a minimum price in the cover of the book. Absurd, right? Well the US Supreme court agreed that people could ignore that, sell their books for any price, and that principle was called the First-sale Doctrine. Recently a Thai student bought cheaper books overseas and imported them for sale but the publisher tried to use copyright to prevent the second-hand books from being sold and there’s been an ongoing court case to establish whether First-sale Doctrine applies to overseas purchases too. Today the court ruled that it does apply. As ArsTechnica report,

The importation of copyrighted goods made abroad has been an increasingly contentious issue in recent years. Easy access to Internet resale markets like eBay and Amazon have made it possible for a new breed of entrepreneurs to buy low and sell high in a wide array of areas. The Supreme Court handed these resellers a major victory today, issuing a decision [PDF] that makes it clear that the “first sale” doctrine protects resellers, even when they move goods across national boundaries.

Of course if “intellectual property” was more like real property there would have never been a lengthy court case because it’s understood that, for example, people buying a bar of chocolate can do anything they want with it. Buyers are not encumbered after their purchase. The idea of restricting what happens to a legally purchased item is just another example of how “intellectual property” is not property as we know it and rather that copyright should be thought more of as a monopoly right. That right expires in due course, and it has important limitations like Fair Dealing/Fair Use* and the First-sale Doctrine.