Posts Tagged ‘Copyright’

Section 92A is alive again

Earlier today, Ministry of Economic Development has released a Review Policy Proposal Document, highlighting recommended changes to the older version of the section.

It is significantly improved, according to many sources. A copyright tribunal is proposed to deal with the judicial and punishment issues, and alhtough the three strikes policy is still there, the details are quite different now. I've reduced it two three steps, for details, see the excellent analysis from the Creative Freedom Foundation.

Phase 1 - First Infringement and Cease and Desist Notice Procedure

Phase 2 - Obtain Copyright Tribunal Order to get infringer's details

Phase 3 - Copyright Tribunal decision

Creation of the copyright tribunal significantly improves the fairness of the whole process, however, I am still very disappointed that termination of Internet access remained as a punishment.

Access to Internet, in my opinion, is a fundamental human right in this digital age, people who lacks the full and free Internet access will be significantly disadvantaged in the society.Internet access should be regarded as part of the freedom of communication, which is a concept in many written constitutions.

Such termination is not in the spirit of a free, democratic society - This is why we are so against Internet censorship, especially the Great Firewall. The termination is even worse than that, which the citizens' right to communicate is not just being impeded, but denied in full.

The document is open for consultation, submissions are open until 5pm Friday 7 August.

Section 92A dead

Finally we see common sense prevails.

Most of the us who stood up and against this copyright law is not anti-copyright, I respected copyright holders' rights whenever I can. However, protection of copyright involves a mutual respect, but I feel this Section 92A, promoted by copyright holders, deeply undermines my right.

Since they treat netizens guilty of violating their rights before convicted, I also got a nice name for what they did which caused a great outrage among netizens: "copyright terrorism".

So Section 92A is dead but it doesn't mean this country does not respect copright.  New copyright protection measures will restart from scratch, I hope the new law got more common sense in it.

Copyright Act Section 92A - what copyright terrorists really want?

My friend just forwarded me a link from Computerworld, a leaked letter from RIANZ, showing the points they disagree with the TCF code of Practice, currently at a draft stage.

Yes, they are copyright terrorists,  I have no doubt about that, let's  just see what they want:

RIANZ instead wants users to be required to provide sufficient evidence as to why they believe the alleged infringement didn’t occur via the internet account in question and/or why there is no copyright infringement of the file being downloaded.

Who's accusing who? Why should users prove they are innocent when they are accused by others?

RIANZ opposes having to pay for processing copyright infringement notices and indemnifying ISPs for any costs and liabilities.

So it's not all right when others download musics for free, but it's all right to have others to work for you for free?

Third, RIANZ does not want the notices sent out to users accused of infringement to include evidence that would be admissible in court.

You know this is simply amazing. This is not just guilt upon accusation, it's guilt upon accusation with absolutely with no evidence to back it up. Even the murders have a chance to see the evidence used to against them, but Internet users don't get this right.

Furthermore, RIANZ says its evidence is “highly reliable, well-tested and accepted worldwide”.

This is not the point. The point is, download activities don't mean that download is an infringement of copyright, in many cases, it's legal to download materials, like using downloaded materials as a backup of a disc I already own.

Yes they are right holders, and I do respect their copyright, but if they just want to keep abusing people like this, I'll have no sympathy for them at all.

Today's final blackout protest - and we won, for now.

UPDATE: It worked. About 4pm today the government has announced that it will delay the implementation of s92a til end of march. If there's still no agreement at that time then the act will be suspended.

Today many New Zealand sites, mostly blogs, but also some well known NZ sites like throng and scoop, have voluntarily blacked out their sites, cut access to all content on their sites to protest the to be effective Section 92A of the copyright act.

This kind of Internet protest is quite rare in NZ, especially when you consider the fact that political blogs from across the political specturm, from Act supporter to Green supporter have all joined this protest. Those people usually disagree with each other on everything, but in this instance, they had come together. It just shows you how deeply unpopular this S92A thing is among the people who really understand the Internet.

And no, those people are not youngsters who are just protesting because they will soon unable to illegally download pirated materials.  I think it's bit sad that in some people's mind Internet is merely a place for email and news. Internet in my opinion, it is fast becoming another life necessity, part of people's basic right. It's like road, we, including criminals, all have the right to use public road, but you don't expect Ministry of Transport to police road users to see who's using the road network for illegal activities?

And National cannot get away with this. Yes it was passed under the previous government back in 2008, however, both Labour and National supported this law, and I quote from parliamentary record, Christopher Finlayson(National):

The Minister [Judith Tizard] knows, and I certainly know, that we have all had approaches from various commercial entities ...

I didn't  fake anything nor took it out of context, this is not kidding. See what our politicians have become.

Well, one week to go, try to enjoy the freedom while it lasts.

Section 92a of the copyright act, update

While I was away there were some interesting development on this issue. First the latest response from the parliament, Simon Power, Minister of Commerce:

Yes; I respond by saying that I am mindful of the concerns that have been expressed by the public in relation to this provision coming into force. As the member will be aware, industry representatives are currently working on a code of practice to help implement this law, which was passed by the previous Labour Government.

For me, this means that the government is not going to delay the implementation or abolish 92A, but rather leave the job of fixing problems to the "Code of Practice".

I talked about that "Code of  Practice" before, I was quite happy on the draft version but that code is not in concrete yet. It is still open to public submission so to copyright holder submissions as well. This submission is now far more important than blackout your facebook page or write a letter to your local MP. I'm preparing my own submission.

I also checked responses from ISPs, here are the  extracts:

Orcon:

There will be a fee for rights holders lodging infringement notices to offset the work that we will have to undertake in order to process the alleged infringement.  There will be no additional fees or charges for customers.

I hope Orcon charges them a good price. ISPs shouldn't get abused by copyright terrorists as well. I also think ISPs should cut the internet of any copyright holder who have made 3 false accusations  - it's more than fair.

Telecom New Zealand (via twitter):

We recognise the importance of protecting individuals' copyright. However we don't believe #s92 in its current form is the best solution.

I certainly agree, I'm not endorsing piracy, but this society should not giving up its liberty and undermining its justice system to protect the profits of some.

Vodafone didn't got a lot to say, but they already finished the work on the format of infringement notice(PDF).

I'll keep you updated. I can't tell the full effect of s92a at the moment, but believe me, this thing is not going to work -for real and serious infringer, there are plenty of ways to get around this law  -  I removed the way to get around the S92A here as I realise that I'm attracting real infringers here.

More on section 92A of the Copyright Act

As you noticed, the original Act lacks details on how ISP should react in relation to copyright holder complains. Telecommunications Carriers' Forum recently published a draft Code of practice and is open for public submission.

I kind of like this code. In summary:

• Four strikes out, final warning after three strikes;
• No matter how many times you infringed copyright, only one time is counted for a month;
• The strike expires 18 months after it was first issued;
• ISP serves you a "education notice" (one strike) when copyright holders made a complain.
• If you dispute,  the notice is revoked, and the copyright holder won't get your personal details ( you don't have the right to dispute after three strikes).
• If you don't dispute, that counts as one strike.
• Four strikes, and you are out.

If this is the way the ISPs will act after section 92A comes in force, then I'm pretty happy.This code of practice reminds me of another important Internet copyright Act - DMCA. They are pretty similar as the duty of identifying whether someone infringed copyright ultimately falls to the justice system, and ISP, as a neutral party, only act upon notices.

If you dispute the "education notice", the only way left for copyright holders is to sue you in court, which is quite unlikely in my opinion, unless you've downloaded too many stuffs justifying their cost and benefit analysis.

TCF definitly made a good call.