The Ministry of Economic Development has confirmed that it has been involved in talks about a centralised system for handling copyright infringement notices (see earlier article).

These talks have included meetings with representatives from IPSafe (www.ipsafe.co.nz) and Datacom (www.datacom.co.nz). IP Safe’s website is rather minimal and they have not responded to our queries. Their record at the Companies Office lists three directors, Chris Riddell, Wared Seger and Adel Shahin.

They also note that the Telecommunications Carriers Forum (TCF) submission about the law suggested that a centralised system run by the government would be the best approach, but this was not picked up by the Select Committee.

The MED goes on to say that they are not in the process of considering such a system and “that specific arrangements for the implementation of the Act are a matter for Internet Service Providers to agree on between themselves.”

The questions have to be: why is Datacom involved and who are they working on behalf of? Who are IP Safe and what is their involvement?