The Ministry of Economic Development has today released public submissions on its proposed reworking of section 92a of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act.

On July 14, a government working party proposed a new version of s92. The central change was that ISPs were no longer charged with policing copyright complaints. Instead, the hitherto largely unknown Copyright Council would consider complaints (an unsurprising finding given the working party was stacked with past and present Copyright Tribunal members).

The so-called “ultimate sanction” of terminating a repeat offenders internet account remained, however.

Commerce Minister Simon Power this morning acknowledged that many of the 113 submissions had misgivings about this hang-over from the original version of s92, which was suspended by Prime Minister John Key on March 30, before it every came into law.

“A key concern raised by some submitters was the proposal to terminate internet accounts as a remedy to copyright infringement. It was felt termination was an unreasonable ‘remedy,’ especially where multiple users of a single account could make identifying an infringer difficult,” Mr Power said.

Complications for business ...
Some, like the Creative Freedom Foundation, raised both ethical issues, and concerns about the compliance cost for business. The EMA and Business New Zealand were both concerned about the potential for a rogue staff member, or contractor, to but an entire company's internet connection at risk.

The EMA went as far to say that such complications meant the revised s92 was still "unworkable and unenforceable." The association would prefer filtering or blocking of file-sharing sites as an alternative.

... and home
Google said termination was a disproportionate punishment, and that domestic accounts could be as problematic to cut off as business ones – especially if the connection was in the name of a partner or flatmate.

NZFact – representing the major Hollywood studios – and other rights holders remained firmly in favour of termination.

Civil's got it covered
Google reinfoced its earlier stated position that it is strongly against any form of termination. The US-based search giant said copyright holders already had provision to take civil action under current law.

However, the minister played his cards close to his chest, giving to indication whether he would re-access the termination provision. A French court recently struck down a similar provision as a breach of human rights.

Google also raises legal issues about the revised s92, saying the threshold for evidence is too low and also about practical and financial concerns. It says warning notices will need to be extremely detailed. And although ISPs will no longer have to make the call on whether to terminate a customer, Google and others are concerned that the process of sending notices will be expensive for ISPs.

And now: more waiting
More patience is required by both sides. A paper on the revised s92 will go before cabinet some time “later this year.”

Mr Power said that overall, there was broad support for the new-look s92 as more balanced. Most people, and organisations, on both sides of the debate welcomed the possibility of the Copyright Tribunal being used as an independent arbiter.

Read the MED's summary of submissions here.