The arty types over at Creative Freedom have put out a press release on the impending announcement of replacement Section 92a copyright laws in NZ.

high level summary:
* John Key already called the old law draconian
* Internet termination is not something that 10,000 NZ artists want done in their name
* There's a bigwig Hollywood lobbyist in town trying to convince NZ govt to give us less rights than a US citizen would have.
* 30-37% of accusations have been proven false (how many are proven true?)
* Entertainment industry statistics have been show to be unscientific (or just plain made up lies)
* Australia called entertainment industry stats "self serving hyperbole"

“NZFACT claim that millions of dollars are lost to online infringement despite not actually selling box office movies online, which raises the obvious question of whether millions are lost due to illegal downloads, or unsatisfied customers.”

as pointed out by Creative Freedom, NZFACT^[1] have finally admitted Section92a^[2] of the copyright act means "guilt by accusation"

NZFACT were quoted on stuff.co.nz:

[NZFACT] envisaged ISPs would act on infringement notices generated automatically by copyright holders, who would identify infringers by tracking traffic on file-sharing sites."

So, someone automatically generates an accusation, and ISPs were expected act on them. That's accusation, swiftly followed by punishment explained.

Why would ISPs do that? becuase the original S92a made the ISP themselves liable if they didn't disconnect the accused, thanks to some vagues wording of "reasonable circumstances" (the whole section 92 is entitled "ISP Liabilty").

[1] NZ front of USA based lobbyists for extreme copyright laws.
[2] The Guilt by Accusation Internet Termination clause in New Zealand copyright law that was thankfully stopped by the blackout protestors and our new National government.

As much as i fear commericial music publishers being believed when they claim to be the representative of all musicians -- i have a much much greater fear of the same thing happening in literature.

Human thought is recorded by the written word, and the importance to society and civilisation cannot be underestimated.

I highly recommend having a read of the Google Books settlement over in the US.

I'm still getting my head around it, but here's what has alarm bells ringing:

1) It considers any book not published in the USA is therefore classed as "out of print" / "orphaned work". The book may be in print in New Zealand, by New Zealand publishers, but if they're not selling in the USA they don't count.

2) Out of print works can be offered up by Google for users of Google Book search to read online without buying the book, or any other restrictions usually enforce by copyright, such as creative commons derivative/share-alike clauses.

3) The settlement took a really really small group of authors ([USA] Authors guild) and declared their assertions representative of millions book authors everywhere.

4) The settlement grants these rights to Google, and only to Google. They've secured themselves a water tight monopoly over searching nearly all of the earth's books, as defined by the "out of print" rules and the consent of that tiny group of authors deemed to represent all authors.

I read books electronically - i have since circa 1996 on a Philips nino, later many palm pilots.

The illegal trade in ebooks exists - can be found in the same place you'd find music and video shared. (torrents, p2p, irc). Some call this fair use as they already own the book. They just want the digital version now. I'm sure some are reading without buying the book.

I once had a guillotine (sp?) and scanner set up - chop the spine off a paper back, feed through document feeder and OCR into an electonic text. These I still read on my slowly failing Palm TX.

Of course I'd never do this with out copyright holder permission. (New Zealand copyright laws allow format shifting audio, but only audio - nobody can tell me why this is law). But the question remains, who is losing out from this? The author/publisher won't sell the books electronically. I bought the damn book already.

There are also excellent authors who give away books for free, and there are many more who sell their books- some for a reasonable $1 to $3, others for much more than the paper version costs.

Over in Australia, that giant group of "movie industry" companies failed to convince the judge of the merit in their case against an ISP for "allowing copyright infringement".    

The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: Gadgets on the Go

Movie studios suing Australian internet provider iiNet have dropped some charges, no longer claiming the ISP directly infringed copyright laws by refusing to disconnect customers downloading pirate movies.

The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, representing various copyright holders, had accused iiNet of committing "conversion" - directly infringing copyright by interfering with the copyright holders' "rights of possession". The charge was dropped after AFACT lawyers failed to convince Federal Court judge, Justice Dennis Cowdroy, of its merit. The judge has ordered the studios pay iiNet's court costs relating to that claim. 

Whenever this ISP recieved an accusation of copyright infringment, they would pass the matter onwards to the Australian police. The ISP did not wish to become the unpaid copyright police for large movie studios, nor were they qualified for such a job.

The remaining charges revolve around whether iiNet is liable for the actions of its users and their alleged copyright infringement.

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.

Here's a keynote from a conference a couple years ago - by leader of the Swedish political party, the Pirate Party.

I met Rick earlier at a dinner earlier that same week.

He does represent the furthest view in favour of rights of the fans. (and you'll find nearly zero artists who aren't fans of someone else and also "consume" more than they produce)

I see the polar opposite view gets a lot of press time. That's the idea that all rights belong to the creator record label copyright holder, nothing to fans, to the point of denying critique, or claiming even subtle inspiration by another work needs permission.

Mainstream media (outside Sweden) seldom gives time to Rick's view point.

My own opinion is somewhere in the middle, but please do listen to the keynote, a short 15 minutes, as he has good points to make.

video released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 licence.

Copyright Regime vs. Civil Liberties
Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party and the international politicized pirate movement, talks about the rise and success of pirates, and why pirates are necessary in today's politics. He'll also outline the next steps in the pirates' strategy to change global copyright laws.

Some food for thought from the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
iPods, First Sale, President Obama, and the Queen of England | Electronic Frontier Foundation

President Obama reportedly gave an iPod, loaded with 40 show tunes, to England's Queen Elizabeth II as a gift. Did he violate the law when he did so?

You know copyright laws are broken when there is no easy answer to this question.

I like EFF - they have released many a report on the privacy issues in google's products and advertising technology [1] [2] [3]

Incidentally, seeing challenging questions of copyright laws from EFF reminds me of APRA's statement to their members saying that:

The language on the CFF site is similar to the EFF – the “Electronic Frontier Foundation” who are challenging songwriters’ rights in Britain. The EFF has a mutual relationship with Google, the same ISP whose tactics against songwriters has angered the Featured Artists Coalition.

heh. so many things wrong with that statement by APRA.

and finally.. an ipod on a puppy:

I'm hearing the same thing from many directions this year: Law makers changing copyright laws, primarily to protect musicians, without consulting musicians.

From Radio Head

In addition, the artists are unhappy with the fact that the labels, represented by lobby groups such as the RIAA and IFPI, are pushing for anti-piracy legislation without consulting the artists they claim to represent. Fans are unnecessarily portrayed as criminals according to some.

From Veteran singer-songwriter and political activist Brag

"What I said at the meeting was that the record industry in Britain is still going down the road of criminalising our audience for downloading illegal MP3s, if we follow the music industry down that road, we will be doing nothing more than being part of a protectionist effort. It's like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube."

from Creative Freedom NZ

The Creative Freedom Foundation announced today that thousands of artists have signed their petition against the removal of New Zealander's rights through changes in copyright law, purportedly done in the name of protecting artists and creativity.

APRA member and Wellington musician Phil Brownlee

a report from Waikato's student magazine:

Supporters of the controversial "guilt upon association" copyright law have been asking people to sign a petition in favour of the law, claiming it is about controlling child pornography.

Several United Video and other video rental stores in Hamilton are circulating a petition, asking that people agree to the statement "that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) should... [agree] to terminate the internet accounts of persistent infringers of copyright law."

But staff at the video stores have been telling customers that the petition is about stopping child pornography. Staff at United Video Dinsdale could be overheard last weekend telling customers that the petition was about stopping "illegal downloads online" and "especially kiddy porn." They were unclear about what the law being referred to actually was or what the petition addressed. When staff called upon the manager, Sue, to clarify the petition, she also said that the law was about stopping illegal downloads,

"Particularly child porn," she said.

read more

What the amendment actually does is make an ISP liable is they do not have a policy of disconnecting those that repeatedly infringe copyright. Do they imagine someone is going to use the copyright laws and claim they own the copyright on some child rape videos!!??

Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 2:56 pm
Press Release: LinuxChix NZ

New Zealand Linux Industry and Community reject guilt on accusation copyright laws Press release by LinuxChix NZ, Waikato Linux Users' Group and Wellington Linux Users' Group 11-March-2009

A new threat has emerged against Linux and other Open Source Software: New Zealand's new, ill-conceived copyright laws that pave the way for users to be disconnected on accusation of copyright infringement.

Copyright threats against Linux are nothing new. In 2003 The SCO Group, a commercial entity from the USA, falsely claimed copyright on parts of the Linux operating system. It took a long time, over four years for these claims to be declared as false by the courts and thrown out. Even though SCO Group's copyright claims were found baseless, the drawn-out legal process was prohibitively expensive and held the potential to severely damage the future of Linux.

Many New Zealand businesses and community groups fear the threat of false copyright accusations against Linux could result in internet disconnection and website takedowns without due process. There is no requirement under the new law to prove the accusations, nor are there any sanctions against those who make false ones.

Already, the country's third largest ISP, TelstraClear, has stated it will take down sites accused of hosting copyright infringing material without investigation or verification of the claims.

New Zealand Linux Industry and Community reject guilt on accusation copyright laws | linuxchix.org.nSource: linuxchix.org.nzA new threat has emerged against Linux and other Open Source Software: New Zealand's new, ill-conceived copyright laws that pave the way for users to be disconnected on accusation of copyright infringement.

Group petitions against copyright law changes | TECHNOLOGYSource: tvnz.co.nzWatch TVNZ news tonight for Bronwyn Holloway-Smith speaking on New Zealand's "guilt apon accusation" style copyright laws.