We got a new copyright act in New Zealand late last year - any regular reader of my blog will already know this.

Amongst the many changes, the new copyright act finally allowed "format shifting" - for example copying your music from your CD collection into your ipod.

However, this was limited to sound recordings only. - You cannot copy that movie or tv show you have recorded into your ipod.

Here's a quote from NZ's Ministry of Economic Development FAQ explaining exactly that:

Why is there a format shifting provision and why is it limited to sound recordings?

The new format shifting provision responds to the concern that people want to transfer music they have legitimately bought onto different devices to take advantage of new technology. It also recognises this has been common practice for a long time.

The markets for audio visual works and music are evolving, they are different. There are numerous business models for audiovisual works that do not apply to music. Theatrical release, commercial rental (both physical and online models), free-to-air TV and pay TV do not have counterparts of any significant extent for music. It is also unlikely that consumption of audio visual works "on the move" using mp3 players and the like will ever be as ubiquitous as for music. It is not, therefore, possible to simply apply the conclusions reached about music to audio visual works.

Pirate Bay Judge Exposed as Member of Pro-Copyright Groups | National Business Review (NBR) New Zeal

One of the four men convicted in The Pirate Bay trial is seeking to have his guilty verdict thrown out after learning that the judge in the trial is a member of two pro-copyright groups, including one whose membership includes entertainment industry representatives who argued in the case.

I'm "pro-copyright" too -- that's is, i believe we have inherent rights to copy our own culture, modify and build apon it. Otherwise we just standstill and become a mono-culture of consumers, not producers, watching the produce of the old incumbent without progress.

I also strongly believe we should never throw away our civil liberties to protect the last century business models of large wealthy foreign big media companies.

Copyright is written into the law, so this means the pro-copyrights judge is pro-law? i don't see the conflict yet.

that is, unless the judge is pro-something-more-draconian-than-copyright-laws.. if he/she is an known advocate of removing copying rights, then there's a conflict.

A report from Creative Freddom that APRA is telling its members that 'copyright is under attack'.

APRA says:

There is clear evidence that a campaign is underway to change copyright law in favour of users, diluting creators’ rights and threatening future royalties for APRA members. This is not just in NZ; copyright is also under attack internationally from ISPs and user groups.

Whenever apra says "users" i'm pretty they are actually referring to "fans" - and they seem really concerned that new copyright law might give fans rights such as a right to a fair trial. Copyright Infringement is against the law, and this has not changed with recent law changes.

What's really happening is lobbying groups pushing for legislation that removes citizens' rights, fans included. The Draconian "section 92a" meant you could be disconnected from the internet based only on acucsations with minumum standard of evidence required. Very similar laws passed in France this week.

The phrase "Internet users" needs better recognition too -- hands up if you're not an internet user? Do you know many businesses that aren't internet users? how about charities? hospitals? libraries? musicians? We are all internet users

who has spoken in favour of section 92?
Recording Industry Association of New Zealand
United Video
NZFACT (NZ wing of the Motion Picture Association)
Sky Television
Chris Hocquard (Entertainment Industry Lawyer)
Judith Tizardh

who has spoken against section 92?
NZ Librarian Association
NZ Law Society
John Key (prime minister of NZ)
Yulia (vocalist)
Glyn MacLean (Pianist and Keyboardist who works as a TV & Film Composer & Singer )
Luke Buda (Phoenix Foundation)
Peter Dunne (MP, UnitedFuture),
Rodney Hide (Cabinet minster)
Political parties: Green Party, Maori party, United Future, Act Party, Alliance.
Luke Rowell (Musican Disasteradio)
Imon Star (musician aka Olmecha Supreme)
google (some kind of search engine website)
Nathan Torkington (author)
Colin Jackson (regular radio broadcast columnist on national radio)

So the new copyright act says we're allowed to "format shift" sound -- but only sound.
We're not allowed to format shift video, or images, or text.

from the MED FAQ:

Why is there a format shifting provision and why is it limited to sound recordings?

The new format shifting provision responds to the concern that people want to transfer music they have legitimately bought onto different devices to take advantage of new technology. It also recognises this has been common practice for a long time.

The markets for audio visual works and music are evolving, they are different. There are numerous business models for audiovisual works that do not apply to music. Theatrical release, commercial rental (both physical and online models), free-to-air TV and pay TV do not have counterparts of any significant extent for music. It is also unlikely that consumption of audio visual works "on the move" using mp3 players and the like will ever be as ubiquitous as for music. It is not, therefore, possible to simply apply the conclusions reached about music to audio visual works.

the argument seems to be that something needs to be "ubiquitous", otherwise we'll make it illegal. (It also seems strange to say that people don't want to consume audio visual works on the move - have they never been on a long haul flight?)

The whole document ignores other forms that creative works take.

You wouldn't buy from spammer, would you? They do so much harm to our internet. Clogging email to the point where genuine messages are lost into spam filters, and wasting our time.

You wouldn't buy from a spammer -- but would you buy from "BigContent"?

That's Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Time Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Disney......

The same people who lobbied to have "Guilty apon Accusation" added to New Zealand's copyright law - who sue ISPs for _allowing_ copyright infringement - they sue people without computers - they sue dead people -- they sue and sue and sue, and lobby, lobby, and lobby some more, all to protect their failed business models.

and yet us New Zealanders keep sending them money.

The new provisions for format shifting in the copyright act are restricted to audio only -- because audiovisual isn't "ubiquitous" enough.

see:

FQ&As about the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill

Why is there a format shifting provision and why is it limited to sound recordings?

Quoting from the very eloquent William Patry, US Copyright Lawyer:

Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works. Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models, to suppress new business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes no harm, but which is beneficial to copyright owners. Like Humpty-Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again: multilateral and trade agreements have ensured that, and quite deliberately.

Quoting Cory Doctorow:

The internet is only that wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It's only vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people (and growing every day).

This trivial bit of kit is so unimportant that it's only natural that we equip the companies that brought us Police Academy 11, Windows Vista, Milli Vanilli and Celebrity Dancing With the Stars with wire-cutters that allow them to disconnect anyone in the country on their own say-so, without proving a solitary act of wrongdoing.

But if that magic wire is indeed so trivial, they won't mind if we hold them to the same standard, right?

Quoting Alan Story, a Senior Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law at the UK's University of Kent, on ACTA.

Where do we read about how copyright blocks access to books or leads to ever greater commodification and sameness in our culture? Instead, we are regularly carpet-bombed by the latest revelation, accompanied by statistically unreliable surveys, as to how piracy is, one week, killing the music industry, and the next week, the film industry. Lock ‘em up, cut off their Internet access forever, piracy funds terrorist cells: the articles never cease in this steady drip after drip.

and for a completely different angle, quoteing Roberto Verzola of the Philippines:

If it is a sin for the poor to steal from the rich, it must be a much bigger sin for the rich to steal from the poor. Don’t rich countries pirate poor countries’ best scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses and programmers? When global corporations come to operate in the Philippines, don’t they pirate the best people from local firms? If it is bad for poor countries like ours to pirate the intellectual property of rich countries, isn’t it a lot worse for rich countries like the US to pirate our intellectuals?

In fact, we are benign enough to take only a copy, leaving the original behind; rich countries are so greedy that they take away the originals, leaving nothing behind.

Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being | coffee.geek.nzSource: www.coffee.geek.nzCopyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works.