Recommended copyright regulations released

The Ministry of Economic Development has published the recommendations for regulations for the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Act. Some interesting points:

  1. 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.)
  2. 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).
  3. Rights-holders can appoint an agent to act on their behalf to send notices.
  4. Rights-holders must use any automated system provided by an IPAP (ISP) to receive notices.
  5. 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.
  6. Complaints must include the name of the work, the protocol being used and the NZ time/date.
  7. 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.)
  8. Rights-holders will pay $200 to take a complaint to the Copyright Tribunal.
  9. 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.