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NZ's New 20th Century Copyright Laws

Yesterday marked a milestone in copyright law in this country.

Yes, New Zealand's copyright law was dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th century.

No, I didn't get that wrong -- I really meant to say "20th century".

The Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill has been so long in gestation that some of its provisions are already showing their age, just a day after passing into law.

Okay, so it's a step forward in some directions but it's a rather small step and more of a "shuffle to the side" than a giant leap.

While some of the provisions are consumer-oriented, many are not and ultimately they are outweighed by the rights of copyright holders and penalties that can be applied to infringers.

When I checked the legislation.govt.nz website this morning I found that this legislation was still classified as a bill rather than an Act -- I guess it hasn't been signed into effect yet but it will be.

I took a browse through this bill this morning and tried to find the bits relevant to format-shifting -- couldn't see it anywhere.

However, we're told that this amendment does make provision for consumers to format-shift some media, such as ripping your CD to your iPod -- unless the CD publisher expressly excludes such an act.

But where's the provision for format-shifting video media?

Say I buy a legit copy of my favourite movie on DVD. What if I want to rip this movie to play on my little hand-held media-player so that I can watch it on my next long trip?

Stiff cheese. I guess this legislative amendment was made before our politicians realised that you could fit a movie on a 5GB SD card and play it anywhere on a $100 personal media player.

And what if you've recorded something from FTA TV using your hard-drive PVR but want to store it on DVD for later viewing because your drive is almost full? Is this an illegal act due to the format-shifting involved?

What happens also once we see video downloads become commonplace?

Beware anyone who falls foul of section 226A of the new Act. If they sell, distribute, let for hire, offer or expose for sale or hire, or advertise for hire a device that can be used to circumvent copy-protection or "technological protection measures" (TPMs).

You could find yourself languishing in jail for up to five years or suffering a $150K hit to your bank account.

Look out Paper-Plus, those felt-tipped markers could now be considered contraband!

And I strongly suggest that anyone carrying links to the videocrypt decoding software that can be downloaded from the Net make sure they're expunged from your website, lest you also infringe the new law.

Is Google risking prosecution here?

Well your ISP isn't, they're indemnified against caching infringing material.

This bill has good and bad provisions but it's glaringly obvious that no attempt to make laws in the area of new technology will be successful if the gestation period is as long as it was for this Act.

Of course rushing laws through too quickly is also a bad thing -- so just how do we cope with legislating to control and protect the rights of consumers and producers when technology changes so very rapidly?

Maybe we can't.

Perhaps the Copyright Amendment Act before is really the best we can do.

Or is it time we approached the whole issue from a somewhat less legalistic and finely grained perspective.

Could we replace that mountain of "hitherto" "forthwith" and other legalese with a few simple objectives?

Could we simply lay out the *objectives* of the law and leave the rest up to commonsense?

ie: "No person shall use the intellectual property of another for commercial or other gain without the approval and compensation of the copyright holder"

and "No intellectual property owner shall unreasonably restrict the right of a licensee to use that property for their own personal purposes"

Wouldn't this just about cover the whole Act?

Unfortunately, huge numbers of people lack the commonsense and ethics to operate under such broad guidelines so I guess we're stuck with a bunch of politicians dictating what we can and can't do with the stuff we read, watch and hear.

What's your take on the new Act?

Out of date already?

Fair and reasonable?

Too little too late from a consumer's perspective?

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