Guest post from Alaister Moughan about Remix and Creativity
Increased enforcement without legal alternatives is ‘all stick, no carrot’ — what you can do about it
In the MED Infringing File Sharing regulations discussion document (public submissions due at the end of this month) they ask for feedback on the ways of calculating fines. What should the fines be for movies or TV shows that were never available online for purchase; that could never have been a ‘lost sale’?
Copyright Bill has Second Reading in Parliament
The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill is due to have its second reading in Parliament today. The item has been due to go through the house for a while now, but has been fairly low on the list. We are surprised to find out that it is being rushed through under urgency, and we’re not alone, MPs who have been involved in the process are surprised as well.
Call for TPPA Text to be Released
As we’ve mentioned before, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is the next cause for concern in an ongoing line of potential threats to our creative freedom. Like ACTA, the text of this agreement is currently being negotiated in secret by New Zealand and a host of other countries including the US, however leaked documents suggest that a huge array of matters are up for negotiation and if other US Free Trade Agreements are anything to go by we should be very concerned – this could affect the lives and livelihoods of an enormous number of kiwis. Thankfully a group called TPP Watch have started a petition calling for the release of the TPPA text.
Art at Risk: Copyright, Fair Dealings and Art in a Digital Age
A comprehensive online research report about Copyright has just been released by Dr Susan Ballard and Pam McKinlay of Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic. Titled Art at Risk: Copyright, Fair Dealings and Art in a digital age, the report is a collection of research materials about Copyright, Fair Dealings and Art in a Digital Age. It has a New Zealand perspective, offers information for classroom situations, and has been freely released undera Creative Commons license. Co-author Pam McKinlay writes:
From Flickr to Facebook to YouTube students engage both still and moving digital images and negotiate different permissions and database resources every day. In this research project we sought to develop guidelines around how to approach the use of digital images – and answered some of the questions that students ask everyday: What can you download from YouTube? Is everything on Flickr available to use? Can I cut this image up and call it my own? What happens if I upload my project to Facebook?
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) The Next Cause For Concern
Hot on the heels of ACTA, the Trans Pacific Partnership is the next cause for concern in an ongoing line of potential threats to our creative freedom. Like ACTA, the negotiations are again happening in secret, and leaked reports show that extreme copyright laws are once again on the agenda, although it seems that the NZ Government has an admirable stance going into the negotiations. TechLiberty reports: “The fourth round of negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) starts in Auckland today. Nine countries are meeting to develop a free trade agreement covering a wide range of goods, but it looks as though the copyright maximalists are using it as an excuse to push their extremist position yet again…Just like with ACTA, information is escaping and NZ’s position paper on intellectual property has been leaked. It shows that the New Zealand government opposes a further extension of intellectual property rights saying that the economic arguments to do so are weak.”
Part of the document from the New Zealand Government reads: “The expert analyses show that capitulating to US demands in the vain hope of some concessions on dairy access will carry a high price, jeopardising the affordability of medicines under Pharmac and fettering our ability to strengthen our own innovative capacity.”
RIANZ Want You To Take Their Word For It
On Stuff.co.nz today RIANZ made another ridiculous exaggeration saying that “if you’re delaying it for two years you might as well delay it for three lifetimes” and that those who said ‘copyright infringement over mobile networks was low were incorrect’. RIANZ have offered no statistics to back their claims, and yet again they have not shown how they were even capable of reaching this opinion. They’d simply prefer if you took their word for it, and that this view would affect how laws were made in New Zealand.
Groundhog Day: Guilty until you prove you’re innocent in new Copyright Law
On Wednesday we published a lot of information about s122MA, a return of Guilt Upon Accusation in the new copyright law. Rick Shera has just written an article about it, “Back in 2008, after the Parliamentary Select Committee had removed section 92A from the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill, it was reintroduced unannounced on April Fools Day in an SOP just a week before the Bill was passed into law. The problem with section 92A was an ISP was almost certain to treat an internet account holder as guilty as soon as the ISP received an accusation from a rights owner. [...] Well, despite the many improvements proposed in the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill (section 92A’s replacement), at almost the last gasp the Select Committee has reported back with a completely new provision – a provision that creates a presumption heavily favouring the rights owner. Section 122MA – without any warning, no public consultation and out of kilter with the balanced approach that has gradually developed. Groundhog day – the scales are being unfairly tipped again. For reasons that are not immediately apparent.”
Update: CW Magazine also have an article on s122MA, saying that “the three points … establish very narrow criteria for a challenge. They do not, for example, leave room for a challenge on the grounds that the work was not copyright or that the way it was handled constitutes legal “fair dealing”.”
Kiwiblog on the Commerce Select Committee’s Copyright Report
David Farrar at Kiwiblog has reviewed the new report saying that there are many improvements, but that he hopes they can make further enhancements, “they have recommended that an allegation from a rights holder will constitute burden of proof which must be rebutted. This is dangerous. Google has given evidence that around 30% of the notices they have received in the US are false or incorrect. I think the Copyright Tribunal should be left to its own devices to decide if an infringement notice from a rights holder meet burden of proof. Different rights holders may establish different levels of reliability. I hope the Government will consider amendments to this”
Creative Freedom Foundation Newsletter, 3rd November 2010
Newsletter inside…
