The Ministry of Economic Development has published the recommendations for regulations for the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Act. Some interesting points:
- The cost of making a complaint will be $25 (rights-holders argued for $2, ISPs for higher). This is to be reviewed after 6 months. (Minister recommended $20, Cabinet raised it to $25.)
- The paper recognises that this fee will not allow for full cost-recovery by the IPAPs and will therefore push up internet costs for subscribers (point 25 on page 7).
- Rights-holders can appoint an agent to act on their behalf to send notices.
- Rights-holders must use any automated system provided by an IPAP (ISP) to receive notices.
- Complaints from rights-holders must be signed and include a statement that, to the best of their knowledge, the information given is correct. Whether this will be enough to limit false accusations is unknown.
- Complaints must include the name of the work, the protocol being used and the NZ time/date.
- Notices passed on to account holders must include all of the information submitted by the rights-holder. (This is important to give people a chance to defend themselves.)
- Rights-holders will pay $200 to take a complaint to the Copyright Tribunal.
- The Copyright Tribunal has discretion to set penalties up to $15k as it sees fit, based on the cost of the material and any aggravating factors.