Donnelly Brian: Copyright (New Technologies and Performers’ Rights) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Donnelly Brian: Copyright (New Technologies and Performers’ Rights) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12632] 
Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First did not have a member sitting on the Commerce Committee but we have been briefed on the progress of the work in it. Pretty obviously people will be aware that the Copyright (New Technologies and Performers’ Rights) Amendment Bill amends the Copyright Act 1994. There is a real need to amend that legislation and to bring it up to date because of the emergence of new technologies. 
I look at Maryan Street over there. She would know that one of the issues around schoolteaching in the 1970s and 1980s was the introduction of the photocopier. The moment the photocopier came along we could suddenly take out large chunks of a whole pile and range of different textbooks. Prior to that we could not do it. The photocopier is almost obsolete now in terms of the new technologies that have developed since that time. So pretty obviously this is a timely measure. One amendment to the legislation is to ensure that within 5 years the whole process is to be reviewed. Given the way technology is moving it will probably be time for us to update this particular law within that space of time not after 13 years as we are doing here now. 
One of the things that the people who put the legislation together have tried to do—and I know that the Commerce Committee has tried to adhere to this—is to maintain the existing balance between the interests of the owners and the users of copyright works; in other words to take up the general principles and the basic elements of the Copyright Act 1994 then try to restructure it and reword it in such a way that it would meet the demands possibilities and potentials of the new technologies that have become available. Just so that listeners are aware I say that the bill actually incorporates many aspects of the two treaties negotiated by members of the World Intellectual Property Organization—or WIPO—the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty. 
The first thing that we need to take note of is that the Commerce Committee has recommended a name change. It is a sensible change that purely and simply changes the name from the Copyright (New Technologies and Performers’ Rights) Amendment Bill to the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill. It simplifies it. Although the legislation certainly affects a few performers’ rights it is largely around the new technologies and it simply seems to be redundant to have the additional words. Let us keep things nice and simple. New Zealand First thinks that it is a pretty sensible move. 
Nandor Tanczos the previous speaker talked about format shifting. That is one of the issues that the Commerce Committee addressed and it is something we all have to get our heads round. Those people who have been putting their CDs on MP3s and iPods have technically been breaking the law. Yet they are not criminals; they are just normal citizens doing what normal citizens do. I go and buy a CD and it is pretty tough for me to carry a CD player when I am going for a walk so I put it on my iPod and whoops-a-daisy I have shifted the format and breached the copyright law. The designers of this legislation have used some real sense in terms of saying that yes it is OK if one owns the material to shift it from one format to the other but what one cannot then do is sell off the original or even give away the original—in other words cut into the potential market that the producer or the creator of that particular item had in the first place. That seems to me to be eminently sensible. It takes on board the common sense of New Zealanders shifting from one format to another to make use of new technologies without breaching I believe the rights of the producers in this particular case. New Zealand First certainly believes that the legislation has actually got the formula right when it comes to format shifting. We also believe that the legislation has got it right in terms of time shifting—the retransmission sort of stuff and I will come to section 88 in a little while. 
Education is fairly obviously a very important use of material produced in a variety of different forms whether it is in word format musical format or whatever. We need to be able to use it. As an ex-teacher—and Pita Sharples will tell members this—I say that teachers need to be able to use multiple resources to put together lessons and to have themes around lessons and to create for young people the sort of learning we want. Gone are the good old days when the education department came out with piles and piles of textbooks and generations of kids worked from the same book on Euclid’s geometry for decade after decade. Those days have gone now. 
Teachers need to look at the needs of their class the composition of their class where the students have come from then design their courses around those needs. Educationists have to be able to use material for the purpose of going about their particular jobs. My experience with photocopies is that schoolteachers actually used to push the boundaries of the law quite extensively and I think it is quite good that we start getting this clear so that we do get a balance of rights—the rights of schoolteachers the rights of students to learn in the best possible way but also the rights of the producers of that material to be fairly paid for what they are producing. 
Once again although Recording Industry Association of New Zealand may not be entirely comfortable with what the Commerce Committee and the original designers have come up with New Zealand First believes that largely we have got it right. There may be some tinkering at the Committee stage and that is fine; that is not a problem. We are still listening to people who are coming to us. 
People are also coming to us with issues around the responsibilities of Internet service providers. We make them so onerous to the point that the providers are liable for just about anything on their network regardless of whether they have power over it. We might as well shut down all our Internet networks because no one will be prepared to operate as an Internet service provider. 
We need to get the balance right. Have we got it right? There is still I think a little bit of debate around that but it is about fine-tuning. It is certainly not about large-scale changes to the legislation at this time. I would have to say the same thing applies to technological protection measure circumvention devices; the law has been written in such a way to ensure that these devices are not available for sale for people to use and to circumvent the intent of this law. 
I think there will be debate of section 88 around the provision in the current copyright law for cable television to be able to take up and retransmit almost simultaneously—one cannot retransmit exactly simultaneously. I have to say to the Maori Party that free-to-air material will have quite an impact upon Maori Television and the material offered through it. 
We are well aware of a Supplementary Order Paper that not only makes that retransmission available to cable television—which is just TelstraClear—but makes it available to satellite television and there is a very strong likelihood it will make it available to the Internet in which case we are opening up portholes to the world. We need to think very very seriously about the impact of that Supplementary Order Paper that is being proposed at this point in time. We know also that the Government is planning to put up a Supplementary Order Paper to repeal section 88 which would take away the rights of cable television and the rights of those who have made an investment in cable television. 
So some work is still to be done on this legislation but New Zealand First members largely believe that the Government in its first preparation and the officials and then the Commerce Committee with its fine-tuning have actually got this right. At this point in time New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation.