Coleman Jonathan: Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Coleman Jonathan: Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (National—Northcote) 
: 
 In response to Mr Copeland’s comments about his Supplementary Order Paper 154 I say that National members will not be supporting it because Television New Zealand (TVNZ) and the free-to-air broadcasters all have a particular business model under which they operate their businesses. Let us face it they are commercial businesses. They are in competition with Sky they are in a commercial battle and a war with it and National members are pretty confident that the two parties are going to be able to reach a commercial arrangement without Government interference. That is the whole point of our not supporting Supplementary Order Paper 154. 
We could take it further than that. If a person runs a business with a certain business model and wants to have control over—if it is in the broadcasting sphere—the content that person wants to be able to say: “Look this is my content. I am in charge of where it goes and how it is distributed.” Why on earth would it be fair for commercial rivals to be able to take that content and distribute it from their own platforms? Whatever we might say are the perceived benefits for TVNZ TV3 et al. through that arrangement we have to say that the content is their intellectual property and it is their right to distribute it as they see fit. We have two broad commercial groupings here. We have Sky on the one hand and the commercial free-to-air broadcasters on the other hand. It is in both of their best interests for Television One TV2 and TV3 to be available on the Sky platform and the heavy hand of Government regulation is not needed to make that come about. I think we can be perfectly confident that those two groupings are going to reach a commercial arrangement without the Government once again getting involved with its sticky fingers and turning this into a regulatory mess. 
That is the crux of the argument. The free-to-air channels have control over whom they broadcast to and on what platforms they are carried. They should have that right and we are confident that a perfectly workable arrangement will be reached between the free-to-air broadcasters and Sky television that will enable those channels to stay there. There is a common misconception—I say to Mr Copeland—that just because something is free to air it is— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: It’s free! 
Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN 
: —free. No it is actually intellectual property that is owned by the people who broadcast it. Their business model is predicated on advertising revenue and on control of their signal and just because the content is produced and is out there does not mean someone should be able to pinch it. Take the converse argument: how would people who had a pay television model like it if suddenly the free-to-air broadcasters could pinch their signal—say they pinched Sky Sport and put it on FreeView? There would of course be a huge hue and cry. 
So I think we have to leave them to sort it out. I think it will be sorted out and I think it would be very unlikely that Television One TV2 and TV3 were taken off Sky because that would not be in anyone’s interest in the long term.