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Submission about Digital Enforcement Provisions in ACTA

The Ministry of Economic Development asked for submissions about the Digital Enforcement Provisions in the ACTA treaty.

While we object to New Zealand's participation in the treaty, we still thought it was worthwhile to respond. The full text follows (headings correspond to those in the request for submissions), but the 8 recommendations we made are:

1. The ACTA treaty should note that ISPs are not liable for the actions of their users.
2. That ACTA includes a "notice and counter-notice" regime where complainants can pay ISPs to deliver a notice to the account holder for an IP address at a particular time, and the ISP can pass responses back to the complainant.
3. That ACTA specifies that complainants should be able to obtain the identity of a user from the ISP only after a court order has been obtained.
4. That ACTA makes no attempt to encourage mutually supportive relationships between ISPs and rights holders.
5. That ACTA should recognise that anti-TPM measures have a useful and lawful purpose.
6. That ACTA should insist that participating countries allow consumer rights-holders the right to create, buy and use anti-TPM software and devices if these are used for lawful purposes.
7. That ACTA should forbid the use of TPMs that limit the reasonable and customary rights of people to enjoy the use of the rights that they have purchased or otherwise legally obtained, unless the supplier also undertakes to provide unprotected versions when required.
8. That ACTA should not include enforcement measures concerning the removal or modification of copyright management information.