Parker David: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Parker David: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:18106] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I ask the Minister in the chair the Minister for the Environment what impact the negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement will have on the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill. The reason I raise the issue is that I have before me an article by Brian Fallow from the  
New Zealand Herald  
on 31 March. In it he starts with what we all know: “A balance has to be struck between on the one hand fostering innovation and creativity by protecting the fruits of such labours and on the other stifling progress”—and actually causing cost I would say—“by making it too difficult and costly to access and build on the discoveries of others.” That impacts partly on patents but also has implications in respect of copyright. 
I am one who firmly believes we need to protect the creative endeavours of the people who go to the effort to make creative content. Whether it is a new design a piece of music a piece of art or literary works in the form of poetry or a book the people who put in the effort should be able to protect that content and control its use in the future to a reasonable extent. The provisions in the bill relating to section 92 are predicated on current assumptions about the length of copyright. That section applies only if something is copyright. If it is not copyright then copying it via the Internet or any other means does not infringe anyone else’s copyright. No property right is being infringed. Therefore the length of the term of the copyright is fundamental to how this legislation works in practice. 
According to Brian Fallow the leaked text from the US negotiators in the Trans-Pacific Partnership includes this ambition on the part of the US: “The US also seeks to extend the term of copyright from the life of the author plus 50 years to life plus 70 years.” There are economic consequences of this change. Mr Fallow quotes a recent study by the Australian Productivity Commission which said conceding that change would cost Australia between A$70 million—NZ$95 million—and A$240 million. The consequences of the Government changing the underlying rules relating to the length of copyright if the Government were to buckle in negotiations with the US are very substantial. 
Although I agree that we should protect the fruits of endeavour for people who make creative content I think there should be an end to the life of that protection. In the end valuable copyright material ends up in the hands of corporates more often than not if we are honest. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are not owned by the original people who drew the cartoons; some corporations will have purchased them from somebody else. The corporate interest that we create in copyright—which actually confers monopoly rights on the holder of those rights; they are monopoly rights—needs to be limited as to term and that term should not be excessive. I for one think that even life plus 50 years is already a bit long. That is my personal viewpoint but I am not advocating a change to it. I think that life plus 70 years would be too long and I want to hear from the Government and the Minister in the chair that they are not going to concede that change. 
The next point they make in the article is that the very vexed issue in respect of section 92A which is under debate here will if the Americans get their way in these trade negotiations be up for grabs again. I am quoting again: “Rick Shera IP partner with the Auckland law firm Lowndes Jordan said the draft text reopend the vexed issue of the role of internet service providers in policing intellectual property rights. As ISPs are the conduits for infringing material the film and music industries have targeted them around the world as the best place to throttle it. ‘We thought we had almost got to the end of it with the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill due to be passed in the next couple of months’ Shera said. ‘Imagine you are an ISP who has had to bear the cost of gearing up for that regime only to be told that it is groundhog day and we are all going back to the section 92A debacle.’ ” 
I think it is an appropriate request for the Minister in the chair to give some undertaking to the Committee that we are not wasting our time on passing this bill only to have the legislation effectively undermined and the issue reopened by the negotiations under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.