[wordup] New Copyright Law for New Zealand

[Adam Shand]

This is great to hear, I was at some of the discussions that happened  
with Judith Tizard at the 2007 BaaCamp and was very impressed by her  
willingness to listen.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not.  Is it a huge step in the right  
direction?  Totally!

Adam.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080410-new-zealand-copyright-reform-law-schools-us-dmca-on-fair-use.html
More: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2829/125/
The Bill: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2006/0102-3/latest/096be8ed801aae8a.pdf

New Zealand copyright reform law schools US DMCA on fair use
By Nate Anderson
Published: April 10, 2008 - 02:29PM CT
New Zealand got a massive new copyright reform bill this week. Was it  
good? Was it bad? It depends on who you ask (and whether they read the  
bill). This is a major piece of legislation (PDF), and we won't even  
attempt to summarize all that's packed inside. For our purposes, the  
anti-circumvention provisions are the most interesting, as they have  
turned out to be the most hated part of the DMCA. American consumers  
have never been able to figure out why they should not be allowed to  
rip DVDs and put them on an iPod, for instance, or why they weren't  
allowed to bypass the region coding on a video game that was legally  
imported from another continent. Now they can look on New Zealand and  
think about what might have been.

New Zealand has taken on all these issues and appears to have crafted  
legislation with a lot for consumers to like. Canadian law professor  
Michael Geist points out that its anti-circumvention rules are quite  
progressive. Unlike the DMCA in the US, the new law allows people to  
bypass DRM if the intended use is legitimate, it explicitly allows  
format shifting and timeshifting, and it refuses to protect region- 
coding of movies and games.
As Geist puts it, "the anti-circumvention provisions are arguably the  
best of any country, since they are compliant with WIPO, limited in  
scope, and seek to preserve fair dealing rights."

Just after the law defines a technological protection measure (TPM,  
which is the same as DRM), it makes an exception "for the avoidance of  
doubt." Not included is anything that "controls geographic market  
segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand of a non- 
infringing copy of a work."

The bill grants certain rights to copyright owners when it comes to  
using TPMs, but it notes that these "do not prevent or restrict the  
exercise of a permitted act." The bill also contains a curious  
provision that allows "qualified persons" (defined as librarians,  
archivists, and educational establishments) to perform TPM  
circumvention for users after a user makes a declaration that the  
intended use will be legal. [See Michael Geist's interpretation for  
why this clause exists. -- Adam]

New Zealand also (finally) gets the legal right to shift music from  
CDs to other devices, though this format-shifting right does not  
appear to extend to video for some reason. In addition time-shifting  
of television is allowed, though it appears that copyright management  
information must be respected (certain shows will be deleted after a  
set amount of time, etc.).

For ISPs, the bill provides a safe harbor from any liability that  
might arise from the information that users transmit over the network.  
But the bill also creates a "notice and takedown" system that is  
similar to the one found in the DMCA. This led New Zealand's ISP  
association, InternetNZ, to call the law a "missed opportunity." The  
group was hoping for a "notice and notice" system instead that  
requires them to pass on notifications of copyright infringement but  
does not require the ISP to block or take down material after  
receiving a notice.

The Workers Party of New Zealand is also not pleased by the bill,  
though their beef is that bypassing TPMs allegedly requires the  
assistance of a "qualified person." Our reading of the bill suggests  
that this is only an option for those unable to bypass a TMP  
themselves, and Geist appears to agree, but the section could probably  
have been clarified.

On first glance, the anticircumvention provisions appear well-crafted  
in principle. Sadly, we've seen no realistic move to bring such  
changes to the US. Back in 2003, Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA)  
and John Doolittle (R-CA) introduced the Digital Media Consumers'  
Rights Act(DMCRA) that might have brought such reforms to this  
country, but the bill went nowhere. Its successor, the FAIR USE Act,  
scales back the reforms dramatically but still has yet to pass.