The internet is such a big part of our lives these days. We use it to keep in touch with friends and family, to pay bills, to organise our social lives, for entertainment, for education, even for work.  We use email and VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol, i.e. skype) to keep in touch with family members anywhere in the world.  Social Networking, internet radio and television and discussion forums become a part of our entertainment and social lives.  Even essential home services like electricity, gas and telephone we can access and pay the bills for over the internet.  Imagine losing all of that.

Late last year New Zealand's internet users were protesting against S92A of the Copyright (New technologies) Amendment Act, which would have legislated a guilt upon accusation law.  As a result of that protest Prime Minister John Keys stopped S92A from taking effect in March of this year.  Now the same thing appears to be happening but on a global scale.

Were now in the final week before Section 92A is due to come into effect.

While S92A is a noble attempt to protect artists rights to and income from their work, it does so by potentially stamping on others rights.

The law itself is vague. Here's a copy of it from the "Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill' under section 92A

Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers

“(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
“(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.

An ISP must terminate the internet connection of a person who repeatedly infringes copyright of an artists work. Thats all. Section 92 also broadens the definition of ISP to include things like schools, libraries and business.

The TCF has been working on a "Code of Practice" for implementing S92A.  But a code is not law. Its an agreement between parties and each party can choose whether to follow that code or not. The code of practice is expected to be followed by all ISP's in New Zealand, even though most ISP's have not been involved in creating it.

Telstra Clear, a member of the TCF, has recently pulled out the the negotiations to create the code of practice. Telstra Clear said in a submission to the TCF website that a code of practice can not fix the problems created by a bad law and its not the place of ISP's to be enforcing law.

In my opinion, this law is inadequate and a code of practice isn't enough to make it work. Copyright law is just to complex for ISP's to be able to make fair judgments on acusations of copyright infrigment. And the level of knowledge in data forensics required to prove if an individual is actually guilty of breaching copyright is way above what most staff at ISP's know. These things require specalists, not business that provide people with internet connections.

Wake up National Government. This law hasn't been created in your term but it is coming into effect during it. It's up to you to do something to fix it.

The opinions in this article are my own and do not reflect those of the management of Smat Newtown

InternetNZ, a member of the TCF and a member of the working party involved in creating the TCF's Code of Practice, have finished reviewing the submissions on the code.  They have reported finding overwelming support in replealing S92A. 

Executive Director Keith Davidson of InternetNZ says “The depth of analysis and the volume and quality of the submissions shows that the fight against 92A is not, as has been suggested by certain people, an hysterical response or something being hyped up by naive or ignorant people.”

S92A is still due to come into force on March 27th.  Lets hope the National Government stands up and does something about this bad law.  Regardless of who created it in the first place, its up to our current government to fix the problem.

Click here to read the InternetNZ media release.

The TCF has released the public submissions to their Draft Code of Practice on their website.  There are submissions from companies like Telstra Clear who pulled out of the Code of Practice last week, NZ Society of Authors, Raido New Zealand and Google to name just a few.  There are also submissions from various individuals.

The main points against the code coming out of these submissions are;

• The law itself is flawed and a code of practice is not enough to put that right.
• It is not the place of ISP's to act as judge, jury and executioner.  Copyright law should be judged by copyright law experts. And the validation of evidence should be done by experts in data forensics.  People who work for ISP's just don't have these skills and should not be expected to have these skills.
• An independent tribunal could adjudicate over copyright disputes and provide a judgment that respects due process and the rights of both parties involved.