There's also a .doc file here with a few more metadata fields (author etc.) but unfortunately no edit history,

http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/regulatory-impact-statement-government-response-family-carers-case.doc

Unless I'm very much mistaken, legislation would have to be passed to implement ACTA.

The way it works is that anything in ACTA that requires a law change would obviously need new legislation, however anything that could be read to be within the law but is currently not a focus of law enforcement wouldn't need new legislation.

For example, people are able to have laptops searched when going through customs right now but they don't usually bother. Through some readings of the leaked text in ACTA this might change.

I doubt s92A had anything at all to do with the demise of the last government.

Probably true for wider Labour but for Tizard there was a lot of criticism in her Auckland central seat. One chain email that I've seen about her and Section 92A/C leading up to the 2008 election picked up nearly one thousand email addresses, so it probably went much further.

I like 'Silly Love Songs', so I clearly have no judgement whatsoever.

Silly Love Songs and in particular the cover of that song by The Replicants are fantastic.

not probably, it is legal, no probably about it,

Great to hear.

an argument that phone companies could be asked to monitor happy birthday calls if we follow the same lines as what s92a asks of ISPs.

The post office or phone companys lack of liability is, we believe, based around a common knowledge of what is practical. Unfortunately some people seem to think that it's practical for ISPs to corroborate accusations. There certainly hasn't been enough discussion around the practicality of corroborating evidence on consumer-grade network devices which most people have. The analogy is based around public belief that -- while checking letters for copyright infringement would be impractical -- any ISP can corroborate evidence. We have only started talking about this in the last few weeks.

As far as alternatives go, we are advocating a reduction in scope of an ISP to those capable of corroborating evidence (this could perhaps be initially based on the Australian definition of a CSP, a commercial service provider like Vodafone or TelstraClear). This then puts the onus on government to phase in sales restrictions on networks devices that can corroborate evidence and increase the scope as is practical.

So that's the reason for the comparison. I hope that seems reasonable to you.

It looks like one side is trying to find a solution and the other vocal side is trying to smash every attempt made to move in that direction.It would be nice if there was a group in the middle somewhere.

We've been promoting an independent adjudicator and practical enforcement for several months (although not initially at the launch, since late December)

1. Begin The Process To Establish An Independent Adjudicator
2. Reduce ISP Scope to those capable of enforcing tracking
3. Change to a Notice-And-Notice model, rather than Notice-And-Takedown

The (3) doesn't mean that the law has no teeth, but that the judgment is moved to the new Copyright Tribunal which could have a range of sanctions... primarily fines but also disconnection. This also works around the problem that the law doesn't distinguish between a copyright infringement of a thirteen year old's self-written Harry Potter story (which could be considered a derivative work) versus distributing thousands of movies illegally.

It would allow the discretion to make the punishment fit the crime.

Hi folks,

it isn't copyright infringement to sing happy birthday to your friends, its copyright infringement to include it in a published work such as a movie.

The argument is about the carrier taking responsibility or being liable for what happens on their network. Singing to friends is probably legal but obviously a phone company can't know whether you are friends, how many people are listening, or whether it's a commercial song-a-gram which, as I understand it, could be deemed public performance and therefore copyright infringement.

and the post office does check your mail for illegal content, mostly drugs an large consignments of pirated or illegal content. so does customs and airport security.

None of those groups check for copyright infringing material (this wouldn't be feasible) and they're certainly not held responsible for enabling copyright infringement as potential secondary copyright infringers in the same way that S92A does.

I think Matthew slightly misinterpreted what Arthur said:

Yes you're completely right Russell -- my mistake. I have edited the response and I'm just about to post an apology for my previous statement.

I really shouldn't write hurried responses during my afternoon tea break.

or matthew could call Ant.
anthony healy 0800692772 ex 710
its free too and he's pretty easy to get in touch with.
just a thought.

Thanks robbery, will do. I've tried to arrange meetings with APRA and RIANZ in the past (via email) but I never received a response. I haven't however tried calling. I am working a clients workplace right now and I don't have a landline but I'll try calling Ant tomorrow.

We have been contacted by a lot of kiwi artists about the Featured Artists Coalition. Although law changes are necessary for some of those 6 points an initial step could be to offer a service for people reviewing their record company contracts to see if they comply to those 6 points. We have some lawyers who have offered to do provide this service, so we may be doing something about this.

It's early days though -- no promises yet :)