Hughes Gareth: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee[Sitting date: 19 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2464. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora. I saw all the other members in the Chamber were having such fun debating the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) that I could not help but rise and make a contribution. It is like Christmas time for geeks in this debating chamber today.What I want to do is touch on Part 6 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) which deals with the Copyright Act 1994. As other members have stated this legislation is for technical amendments. I have a series of questions for the Minister. I have got to admit that I had not actually seen this in earlier discussions around the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) so I would very much like some straight answers. Part 6 simply deals with a minor amendment to reduce the membership of the Copyright Tribunal. Previously section 206 of the Copyright Act as amended by the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Regulations established this Copyright Tribunal to deal with the copyright-infringing file-sharing provisions and it had a membership of five. The amendment in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4) replaces the five with at least two but no more than five other persons. So we could plausibly see a Copyright Tribunal with two members.My question to the Minister is: are they reducing the membership because the Copyright Tribunal has been an absolute dismal failure? Is this the reason why we are doing it? Because what we have seen is a failure in real terms. It is an expensive failure both for internet service providers and the Government and it is not even achieving its stated aims which is to try to reduce infringing file-sharing—what other members may call copyright infringement. So my question is: is this because of the failure? Is the Government trying to save some money on this expensive Copyright Tribunal by reducing the members? If you look at its workload—this legislation passed in 2011; it took 2 years to finally get the system up and running. There were 18 decisions from the tribunal in 2013. Last year there were four decisions by this tribunal with five members and according to its website there has been a single decisionthis year. I remember that side of the House when the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Regulations now more commonly known as the Skynet legislation passed. They were literally banging the tables with their fists on the scourge of piracy and how we were destroying the movie industry and how musicians were begging on the streets. Yet what we have seen is a single case this year and four cases last year from this tribunal. When we talk about the membership of the Copyright Tribunal—Brett Hudson: That’s not the important part.GARETH HUGHES: I would like to remind Brett Hudson about the costs for industry the cost of this legislation and the cost of this five-person tribunal because “ISPs” in 2011—internet service providers Mr Hudson—some of the hard-working Kiwi businesses said that your law had cost $919000 in the first year alone in compliance costs. So when you hear the Government rail on about the costs of red tape the bureaucratic cost of the Government remember who the ones who are applying it are. What we have seen is legislation that is not working and my question to the Minister is whether that is the reason why we are reducing this in Part 6 of the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 4). What we have seen of course is that the tribunal does not have a great deal of work to do.The Motion Picture Distributors Association of New Zealand has not put a single complaint through our three-strikes copyright legislation the supposed first-line response to support artists and intellectual property. Not a single notice came from the Motion Picture Distributors Association. Yet what we have seen is the industry particularly the music industry put in incomplete notices. The tribunal had to throw other notices out. I think the Government members have got to ask themselves why they rushedthrough under urgency such ill-conceived legislation when it is clearly not working.When you look at the official reports on the legislation there was a review by Rebecca Giblin from Monash University. What she said is that National’s legislation is not working. What we have seen is peer-to-peer file-sharing which is what the original legislation that we are now amending again tried to deal with—it was peer-to-peer file-sharing alone. What we have seen of course—and this is an entirely rational response from people who do want to download or share infringing material—is that people are shifting platforms. So my question is: when the Government is reducing the membership of the Copyright Tribunal is it because it is a failure? Is it because perhaps I dare to say it I was right all along? Is it that the experts the Green Party were right all along when we urged to this House that the most effective way to support intellectual property and Kiwi artists is to provide legal online alternatives?We have seen that in the last 2 years with the likes of Quickflix Netflix Spotify—that is the service I love the most. I listen to Spotify on my way to work every day. The fact is that for all the millions of dollars wasted the members on the Copyright Tribunal could have put that effort into encouraging the likes of Netflix down to New Zealand. I remember asking Simon Power in this Chamber what he was doing in the wake of international evidence that the most effective way to reduce piracy was to provide legal alternatives. I asked him what he was doing to bring Netflix to New Zealand and he simply said: “What is that?”. It is a huge missed opportunity. The opportunity cost is that maybe we could have actually had these five people dedicated and working for legal alternatives and ultimately that is the best way to support artists intellectual property and to save the taxpayers and businesses money. Kia ora.