Consultation on S92A

Creative Freedom

"We adopt this strategy now because there's an urgency to this debate. Over time, the space of free expression has shrunk." –Lawrence Lessig

Fix Section 92

Principles

  • Innocent until proven guilty
  • Primary purpose is education
  • Privacy needs respecting.
  • Termination is out: Internet disconnection is a dispproportionate punishment.
  • Fines allow a proportionate punishment.
  • Only intended for small-scale copyright infringement: a Tribunal does not replace the courts.

Introduction

View Draft

The original section 92A was put in place to relieve rights holders' concerns about online breaches of Copyright. Rights holder groups felt that these breaches were causing significant loss and damage to their modes of operation, but it was too expensive and time consuming to take the breaches to Court in each and every case. Some rights holders were seeking a swift and effective punishment for those who they believed to have breached copyright via the internet.

The main concern with the original Section 92A was that it infringed on New Zealander's fundamental right to due process. Let's not make that mistake again.

One unavoidable problem with resolving disputes is the fact that the quality of the process often equates to the time, effort and expense of that process. It's important to find a balance between a fair process and an efficient and cost effective process.

Where that balance can be struck will differ depending on the circumstances of the dispute. For minor matters a quick and cheap dispute resolution process may be appropriate even though this may also be less fair/effective. For more serious matters a more cumbersome and time consuming process may be appropriate even though this will cost significantly more.

Keeping this in mind we've proposed a dispute resolution model with a Copyright Tribunal at its center (which is an additional branch to the existing Copyright Tribunal). It is intended to be a quick online resolution of allegations of repeat copyright infringement in an online environment.

The process proposed is a notice and counter-notice procedure, with an inquisitorial tribunal resolving any disputes on the evidence contributed by the parties and obtained by the Tribunal's questioning. Procedural fairness is maintained by each party being entitled to comment on any further information obtained by the inquisitorial tribunal. The Tribunal has a range of minor penalties that it can impose in this model.

Because the procedure is intended to be quick and cheap it will not always be completely fair. However, respondents will have the opportunity to have their say and defend any accusation. It is also intended to be a process where lawyers are not required. For this reason it is important that the process is not binding on either party for other purposes. This means any admissions made for the purposes of this process cannot be used in other proceedings.

The process is intended to be for respondents who have committed minor infringement of copyright matters and is not considered appropriate for eg. commercial operations that have flagrantly breached copyright. It is expected that the rights holder will make an 'election' (which means a distinct choice between the Copyright Tribunal or the courts) once their rights have been breached as to whether they want to follow the court process or the Tribunal process. As with all legal elections, once the election is made the other option becomes unavailable.

This model is intended to be self-funded through a filing fee, fines, etc. The Tribunal has the ability to order fines, but these are limited to $1000. This is because the Tribunal process is intended to function without lawyers, although if someone choses to employ a lawyer they can at their own cost.

This document is divided into two main sections: regulation and legislation. Some of the suggestions that we have included in the regulation section may be more appropriate in the legislation section and vice versa, but we'll leave it up to you to comment on this.

Consultation

 View Current Draft (25th March 2009)

Thanks to
Paxton Penman Et al

Icon credits to the Tango Project

 

Please Note: Our use of "Section 92" refers specifically to Section 92a and Section 92c, not Section 92b or 92d, etc. This is done for brevity.

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