Creative Freedom Foundation Newsletter, 13 February 2009
(crossposted from CreativeFreedom.org.nz)
With just over two weeks to go until S92A comes into effect, things are really heating up:
- HOT OFF THE PRESS, encouraging news has emerged from Parliament today as Peter Dunne, the Leader of the UnitedFuture party, issued a statement calling for Section 92A to be repealed.
- Our petition has continued to grow and now over 5000 people, including over 2400 artists are saying “Not in My Name” to Guilt Upon Accusation laws in NZ.
- Many of you have written to your local MPs, Steven Joyce, and Chris Finlayson, and examples of these letters can be read on our forums.
- The Telecommunications Carriers Forum (representing most of the major ISPs) released their Draft policy for dealing with accusations last week. The TCF are calling for public feedback on the policy, and CFF will certainly be giving theirs. We are particularly concerned about the proposed rewording of part of the policy that empowers an accuser to decide whether an accused person’s plea of innocence is valid or not, with no involvement from an impartial third part (yes indeed, our friends APRA and RIANZ were involved in developing this rewording).
- CFF Director, Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, was on telly last week participating in a Media7 debate on S92A with Russell Brown, Ant Healy (APRA NZ Director), and Pat Pilcher (Journalist). View streaming on demand from tvnz Episode 2, 5 Feb 2009 (chapter 3).
UnitedFuture calls for S92A to be repealed
Encouraging news has emerged from Parliament today as Peter Dunne, the Leader of the UnitedFuture party, issued a statement calling for Section 92A to be repealed. “All of us who brought in this Act last year believed we were protecting artists from piracy and illegal downloads. However, it is now clear that we have a situation where internet users are vulnerable to the mere accusation of piracy, and that is simply neither fair nor just,” Mr Dunne said…”No one supports piracy, but this clause is draconian — you don’t fix one injustice by creating another. I hope this Government will review section 92A and discard it.” With just over two weeks until the law is due to come into effect, the Creative Freedom Foundation urges the Government to heed Mr Dunne’s sensible advice, review S92A, and discard it. We congratulate UnitedFuture for speaking out against this, and are encouraged by the awareness they have shown of both the major problems with the legislation, and of New Zealand’s status as a lab-rat for legislation like this: “Last month the UK rejected similar laws due to ‘impracticalities and complexities’, and the European Union also rejected them saying that they were against ‘a fair balance between various fundamental rights’, Mr Dunne said.” Read the full Press Release here.
If you haven’t already, NOW is the time to write to Simon Power, Steven Joyce and Chris Finlayson — there is still time for them to change their stance if there’s enough reason for them to. REMEMBER: keep it polite and respectful, but firm — it’s more persuasive that way. Of course this should be in your own words and it doesn’t need to be a long letter. You could mention the number of people that you speak for and their interests, whether you condone copyright infringement that takes money away from artists, whether you think Section 92A is appropriate for New Zealand, and perhaps examples of alternatives such as new business models. This is urgent, have your say today.
If you work for a company, talk to your employer and explain S92A: with this law anyone with a shared internet connection is considered an ISP, so must have a policy in place for dealing with accusations. Of course this will see yet more compliance costs for businesses and, as the law asks untrained people to evaluate copyright law based on accusations, business risks will arise if they get it wrong. Get your company to write a letter Simon Power, Steven Joyce, Chris Finlayson and the Maori Party TODAY.
Released last week: the TCF draft policy on Section 92A
If Section 92A comes into effect then all ISPs must follow a policy of disconnecting people before a trial based on accusations of copyright infringement. One of the largest groups of ISPs, the TCF, released their draft code of practice today asking for public feedback. Submissions on the Draft Code close at 5pm on Friday, 6 March 2009. Here’s the press release, the homepage and the policy itself (PDF, 300KB). A lot of competing interests will be vying to affect this TCF draft, and so we should all prepare to have our say. This code of practice cannot undo the problems of Section 92A: that internet connections are terminated based on accusations of copyright infringement before a trial and before any evidence has been held up to court scrutiny, although to be fair this draft does try to manage this situation. It asks ISPs to measure “evidence that would be acceptable to a court”, but remember that “the definition of an Internet Service Provider goes much further than the traditional ISP [...] includes schools, universities, libraries, businesses, government departments and any other organisation that provides internet services.” and all of these organisations are now expected to replace a court and understand copyright law such as copyright between businesses and between the arts and free speech. The TCF should be applauded for trying to manage this appalling law, and we’re glad to see the sections on Vulnerable Customers and Essential Service Providers (page 14). Of particular interest is a proposed rewording of Section F (pages 31-33) currently not in the code (see more below). Read the policy and post your analysis in our forum or contact us
UPDATE: Read InternetNZ’s response to the TCF draft policy here
Section F Rewording: APRA and RIANZ Seek Power To Judge Copyright Infringement
Perhaps showing how extremist APRA and RIANZ have become, they now support parts* of a “Reworded Strawman Counter-Notice Procedure” (pages 30-34) of the draft policy: the parts that involve “approved” accusers judging the accused directly rather than an ISP. Typically a wrongly accused person would respond with what’s called a Counter Notice saying that they reject the accusation and an ISP would judge that, but with the RSCN Procedure the accuser is empowered to decide whether the accused’s Counter Notice is valid, not the ISP. The accuser then instructs the ISP accordingly. This is still draft policy but it shows how far APRA and RIANZ are willing to go, and this is appalling behaviour from these organisations. The TCF invite your feedback on this or you can join the discussion on our forum. If you write to the TCF detail the number of people that you speak for and the nature of your interest in this. Keep it polite as the TCF are mediators in this.
[*] APRA and RIANZ have apparently not reviewed and endorsed all of this new RSCN Procedure but they want approved copyright holders to be the judge of counter notices.
Televised Debate On Guilt Upon Accusation Laws
Last week CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith participated in a debate on Section 92A. Read Wellington-based blogger Brenda Wallace’s analysis of the debate: “the debate on section 92a, between Bronwyn Holloway-Smith (Creative Freedom Foundation), Ant Healey (APRA) and Technology Journalist, Pat Pilcher. View streaming on demand from tvnz: Episode 2, 5 Feb 2009 (in chapter 3).” There is also some interesting discussion about the debate taking place in our forum.
Weird Copyright Stories #1: Unhappy Birthday?
Did you know that the song Happy Birthday is copyrighted and that the copyright is currently owned and actively enforced by Time Warner? Did you know that if you sing any copyrighted song: …at a place open to the public…or among a substantial number of people who are not family or friends…you are involved in a public performance of that work? Did you know an unauthorized public performance is a form of copyright infringement? Read more at Unhappy Birthday.com
