Shanks Katrina: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Shanks Katrina: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call on the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill today. I acknowledge the work that the Minister has put into amending section 92A of the copyright legislation and the solutions he has found. It is interesting that we are in a society now where digital technology is the norm where information technology growth is the norm where many houses have computers and where our youth from as young as 3 4 and 5 can go on to computers and work them. They have access to the Internet. They actually go on to the Internet and on to Facebook. There are these amazingly interactive games on Facebook— 
Grant Robertson 
: FarmVille? 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: —even FarmVille which is a fantastic game. I have to say that all my children are FarmVille people as well and there is nothing like virtual farming to really get in touch with one’s constituents. We are in an era now where the Internet is the norm. 
Michael Woodhouse 
: You are not in a rural constituency. 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: No I am not but I do have some rural constituents in Ohariu. 
Grant Robertson 
: Virtual or real? 
KATRINA SHANKS 
: Virtual and real. We are in a society now where it is easy for people to talk to each and to share information online and unfortunately part of that is peer-to-peer file sharing. Many people especially those of the younger generation think it is normal to share this information. They do not realise that there is a value on what they are sharing. They just share it very freely between each other as if it is the norm and there is nothing wrong with it. In fact we know that over 2 million movie and TV files are shared every single year because the practice is considered normal and harmless. 
But it is not harmless—in fact there is great harm to those in the creative industries not just globally but more important in New Zealand. New Zealand has a very small market in which producers can sell their local home-grown produce. The problem hits both our music and screen sectors. We have an incredibly amazingly talented screen sector. We have incredibly talented producers; Ainslie Gardiner is an example. She is one of New Zealand’s most successful producers. She produced  
Boy 
 which is the No. 1 movie at the moment after 4 weeks. It is only fair that such people get recognition for the work they do that they get financial recognition for that as well and that their work is not taken and shared for free. Production does cost money and people do make a living off these sectors. It was interesting that in New Zealand a few years ago we had a movie called  
Sione’s Wedding 
. It was leaked out shared and copied and the producers estimated that that cost them $1 million in revenue. That is a lot of money for producers in New Zealand. So it is important that when we look at these problems we look at them so that we find solutions that are fair for those who are producing and for those who are users as well. 
There was an outcry last year when section 92A inserted by the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 from the previous Government was to be put in place. The outcry was basically over the termination of Internet accounts without evidence of misuse or users’ opportunity to provide a defence. The outcry was “How can you take my IP address off me? How can you do that without me being able to defend myself and without you proving that it was actually me who was downloading copying and passing on?”. So last year our Government took a breath stepped back and did a review of section 92A. We put it out to public consultation. We looked at the key concern the concern of the proposal to terminate Internet accounts. 
It is interesting that two other countries have something in place already in terms of this matter. One is France which terminates an IP address and has Internet suspension or a fine on the third offence and there is Britain which is going through the process now. It is consulting with its people and its Internet users as to what they think is fair and on the other side with its producers on what they think is fair as well. 
We have gone out and consulted with the public and now we have this bill before the House. The big part of this bill is the three-notice regime intended to deter illegal file sharing. The bill is doing that by saying that Internet users will be given the opportunity to make that mistake once twice or three times but after that stage we will take some action on it. There will be a reasonable time period before the enforcement takes place. The time frames will be prescribed so that account holders will have an opportunity to address illegal file-sharing activity. A great deal of work has gone into finding a fair effective and credible process for the enforcement of copyright against illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. I support this bill in the House.