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.”
CFF Newsletter May 2011: Copyright Submissions Deadline And Other Stuff
Read the newsletter, inside…
Creative Freedom Foundation submission on Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Regulations
Submissions on the Infringing File Sharing regulations discussion document are due on Friday, and here’s the CFF’s response (PDF). The introduction follows,
DOWNLOAD CFF SUBMISSION
(Guest Post) Don’t You Forget About Me: Remix Creativity the Forgotten Victim of s92A
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.
