Woodhouse Michael: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Woodhouse Michael: Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10436] 
MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) 
: 
 Like the member Grant Robertson I was in attendance at the 21st birthday of NZ On Air last night. It was indeed a celebration of New Zealand music video and other media. 
As Mr Robertson rightly pointed out the amount of New Zealand music played on commercial radio has increased from about 2 percent 21 years ago to over 20 percent now which is a huge success. But he did not mention that the chief executive last night referred to the fact that NZ On Air and the products that are produced are very much online. The member Ms Katene referred to the illegal copying of vinyl on to cassettes as being the way that our generation copied music. I suggest that that was a hand grenade thrown at copyright law whereas the Internet provides a nuclear explosion—such is the difference in scale and opportunity for illegally copying. So the question is whether section 92A of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act was the nuclear deterrent. 
One of the features of this House is the fact that Labour has fiercely defended almost all of the legislation it passed in the 9 years it was in office with a couple of glaring exceptions. I think that the Electoral Finance Act was an example of some mea culpa and in particular David Parker acknowledged that it was not the previous Labour’s Government’s finest moment. I think that Labour’s copyright legislation is another example. 
Credit is due to Clare Curran for bringing this matter to the attention of the House on behalf of her party. Every member of this House was aware of the wave of opposition to the provision. That opposition did not start just at the election; it was very clear that section 92A was not going to work in the way that it was intended. It is a shame that when members opposite were in Government they did not listen a little more carefully to submitters on that point. In fact the architect of this bill Judith Tizard is on record as saying that section 92A was “deliberately vague”. Well I suggest that vague law makes bad law. In fact it was not vague. Those people who were going to be affected by the legislation knew exactly how it would affect them. 
Ms Curran also mentioned something in her first reading call today that I must pick up on. She continued the Labour Party’s longstanding habit of kicking the victim by implying that because large media organisations are large the harm done to them is somehow mitigated. She accused those organisations of working to outdated business models. Well I simply reject that. Hang on if this business model is so outdated why is the legislation affecting those large media organisations more than anybody else? 
I will touch on what Mr Hughes said about the education benefit being lost because of the punitive nature of the $15000 fine. I respectfully disagree with that and Mr Robertson has commented on it as well. There are three reasons why I disagree. Firstly there is a plethora of information out there about video and DVD piracy and Internet piracy. I do not think that it is acceptable now for Internet users to say they did not know that what they were doing was wrong. Secondly in the absence of some form of sanction Internet and DVD piracy messages will simply fall on deaf ears. And thirdly the “three strikes” process that Ms Katene referred to disparagingly does not actually consist of three strikes; it consists of three notices. The process is designed to educate the public about illegal file-sharing and provides effective methods for copyright owners to enforce their copyright. Users are given adequate warnings. If in the face of that the people who participate in illegal file-sharing ignore those warnings then the punishments need to be severe. 
Such people are certainly hurting our entertainment industry and the fantastic young artists who are developing their product with the assistance of the Government through NZ On Air. For that reason I strongly support the bill going to the Commerce Committee. I realise that some questions have been raised and the select committee is an appropriate place within which they should be heard. Thank you. 
Bill read a first time.  
Bill referred to the Commerce Committee.