Young Jonathan: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Young Jonathan: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:671;Page:18099] 
JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth) 
: 
 I must admit that New Zealanders must wonder at times about the huge quantity of laws that we create. As a child I could never understand how Parliament could full-time create law after law until I realised that because society and in particular technology changes in many regards opportunities or technologies are created that then demand that regulation wraps around them in order to bring some order. What we are experiencing today as we look at this copyright infringing law is essentially the future meeting us. These are the sorts of things that people wrote about in times past and today we are facing the challenges of legislating for that. When we think about it we remember that Leonardo Da Vinci drew helicopters and that Jules Verne painted a word picture of submarines. Do members remember  
The Terminator 
? I am sure they do. The computer system— 
Clare Curran 
: “Hasta la vista baby.” 
JONATHAN YOUNG 
: Yes! In that film a computer system called Skynet ruled the world. It was like the Internet today. The Internet creates so many opportunities but also along with those opportunities comes the infringement of people’s rights. This legislation is about bringing some order to the chaos that surrounds the globe because of technology. 
It is really interesting to consider this technology of peer-to-peer file-sharing. A gentleman called Yochai Benkler wrote a book called  
The Wealth of Networks 
. He said: “What is truly unique about peer-to-peer networks as a signal of what is to come is the fact that with ridiculously low financial investment a few teenagers and twenty-something-year-olds were able to write software and protocols that allowed tens of millions of computer users around the world to cooperate in producing the most efficient and robust file storage and retrieval system in the world. No major investment was necessary in creating a server farm to store and make available the vast quantities of data represented by the media files. The users’ computers are themselves the ‘server farm’. No massive investment in dedicated distribution channels made of high-quality fiber optics was necessary. The standard Internet connections of users with some very intelligent file transfer protocols sufficed. Architecture oriented toward enabling users to cooperate with each other in storage search retrieval and delivery of files was all that was necessary to build a content distribution network that dwarfed anything that existed before.” 
We have to say that the people who did that were brilliant—teenagers and young 20-something people. Of course we know that when we look at the Internet today we can see the people who started Google Facebook and Microsoft. They were just going to university or were just out of university—and some of them were not even there—yet their brilliance created those systems and opportunities. But what we face today is the fact that people use this technology without respect for the rights of others particularly as we have said in relation to the creative sector of our society which we all appreciate. We all enjoy movies. We all enjoy the music and the art that is created. We all enjoy the ideas that writers can portray. How accessible are they today? Well it is absolutely amazing. Yet through of all this ability to access information through music audio and video files—all of these things—there is not yet coming with it the sense of responsibility with regard to ownership towards those who originated the works. The economic impact of the ability to file share is huge. 
In 2004 an estimated 70 million people participated in online file-sharing according to a CBS News poll and that is an international figure. Nearly 70 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds thought that file sharing was acceptable in some circumstances and 58 percent of all whom they surveyed who followed the file-sharing issue considered it acceptable in at least some circumstances. That meant that the total value of music sales dropped globally from approximately $38 billion in 1999 to $32 billion in 2003 which meant that a tremendous amount of money was no longer available to those people who had created the music. 
A survey in June 2009 here in New Zealand of 1000 New Zealand Internet users between the ages of 18 and 70—which is a wide range is it not; it is a wide age range—found that every respondent had downloaded copyrighted material at least once in the previous year. It is a common thing that has been happening in our society; legislation is catching up with it to bring a sense of fairness in the market place. 
There are people out there who desire to make a living out of the gifts and abilities they have. That is a wonderful thing and we want to support those people in it. I remember a person who came to the select committee: Anna Cahill the executive director of the Screen Directors Guild of New Zealand. She said that one issue the select committee should understand is that the industry all around the world is grappling with trying to find a new model that works both logistically and financially. At present no one model works but in the future there will most likely be an efficient model such as iTunes. I probably think that iTunes does work and is quite good. She said that in the meantime piracy was laying waste to the livelihoods of many people. 
I was able to converse with constituents from the wonderful electorate of New Plymouth in Taranaki—we call it “Taradise” for obvious reasons. One constituent said to me: “I would like to comment on the recent drafting of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill. This includes a new section 122MA that states ‘an accusation of infringement is conclusive evidence of infringement.’ This means guilt on accusation and is clearly contrary to the principle of innocent until proven guilty. The commentary to the bill says ‘this is to have a fast-track system for copyright owners.’ This is not what law is for. The law should be set to provide justice and fairness.” I thank Peter very much for his comments and input into the process. 
I am pleased to say that the Supplementary Order Paper that has come to the House states—and we will no doubt discuss this further in the Committee stage—that it will omit the phrase “an infringement notice is conclusive evidence of the following:”. It will substitute that with the phrase “in relation to an infringement notice it is presumed—”. I was able to say to my constituent that the preciseness of matching infringing IP addresses to account holders at precise times is a bit like an electronic DNA. However once an account holder provides evidence or reasons why a presumption is incorrect it is then the responsibility of the rights-holder to prove that the presumption is correct. I think that we are making forward progress in a very difficult complex but exciting area. Thank you. 
Amendments recommended by the Commerce Committee by majority agreed to.