$25 cost set for copyright complaints
July 12th, 2011 at 2:02 pm by David FarrarSimon Power has announced:
Commerce Minister Simon Power today announced that internet service providers will be able to charge rights holders up to $25 for processing an allegation of copyright infringement.
The decision was made by Cabinet when considering technical regulations to underpin the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011, which comes into effect on 1 September.
“The Government decided that a fee of up to $25 fee was an appropriate compromise between what rights holders and the ISPs wanted.
“However, we will review that six months after the Act comes into effect to make sure it’s at the right level.
I’m pretty happy with that level, especially as RIANZ wanted $2. From an ISP perspective it might not be enough to cover costs (which is regrettable) but it is definitely set high enough to deter rights holders from filing tens of thousands of complaints a month, and swamping ISPs.
The “downside” of a relatively high fee is that is you do keep infringing and get found liable by the Tribunal, you’ll be ordered to pay the $25 costs per infringement notice plus the $200 fee for taking it to the Tribunal plus the cost of any actual works infringed.
The Cabinet Paper is here. Note that the paper talks of a $20 fee, which is what was recommended to them by the Minister. Cabinet increased it to $25, which is pleasing.
The fee will be reviewed after six months. This is useful, as by then ISPs should have some hard data on what the costs have been, and what the volume of notices has been.
Related posts:
- The first copyright third strike
- Not bad
- Copyright termination terminated – for now
- Copyright Infringement Processing Fee remains at $25
July 12th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
The figure seems low to me. I’ve investigated rights holder complaints before. They (motion picture people, mostly) were invariably wrong in their allegations, but it usually took a couple of hours per complaint to prove that. Some were easy to prove, such as the IP address being on a subnet that wasn’t active. Others would require more detailed investigation, such as showing file sharing ports weren’t logging any traffic and an inspection of the user PC showed it didn’t have peer to peer file sharing software installed. I’d be looking at a fee of around $300 per complaint technician time, plus admin overhead. Maybe $400 total, or so.
Vote:July 12th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Genuine question: At what point does a media right holder “forfeit” their right?
Forfeit might be the wrong term, but here’s what I’m getting at … for years we’ve had a (possibly unlegislated) right to video tape content from free-to-air television and store those video tapes. Nowadays we can record free-to-air content in digital form either on a My Sky type set-top box, on a DVD recorder, or on a computer.
First question: Is it legal for someone to record a digital copy of free-to-air television, say via a TV tuner connected to their computer? Presumably that legal right (and I say legal right loosely, because I’m not sure where it’s set out in legislation) allows that person to record a copy of the programme for their own use, ostensibly to allow them to watch the programme at a more convenient time.
Second question: So once a tv show or movie has been broadcast on free-to-air television to what extent is the rights holder’s right “impaired”? On what basis can they get stroppy about someone having a digital copy of the programme on their computer if that person could legally have made a copy of the broadcast?
Third question: So what are the implications when, say, torrenting a copy of a show that has already been broadcast free-to-air. The rights holder’s horse would appear to have already bolted … and they have been compensated for making their right publicly available. Or is the legal issue more that torrenting (and this is specifically an issue with P2P networks) involves both receiving and publishing the copyrighted property, with the legal issue being more about publishing?
I don’t know the legal setting for this stuff in detail. I can understand why a rights holder has a legitimate complaint if someone torrents down a movie or tv show that has yet to air here. But I don’t fully understand why their rights wouldn’t be impaired once the property has been publicly broadcast.
Anyone know?
Vote:July 12th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
It should be. $25 is ridiculous – why should the ISP have to bear the charge? It’s hardly their fault if one of their customers is downloading contraband. They are basically being forced to subsidize copyright holders.
Vote:July 12th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
@virtualmark: It’s my understanding that the recently amended copyright act allows for format and time-shifting of audio, but not video?
Assuming this is correct (it certainly was before the amendments), it is in fact illegal to video tape or make a digital copy of free to air content (or non-FTA content), whether it’s for time-shifting purposes, format-shifting purposes or any other purposes.
Ofcourse, this is completely retarded, and I don’t believe I know a single person who has not participated in such behaviour.
Vote:July 12th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
I have still yet to grasp who exactly this law is made for. There must be very few members of the public who support making ISPs pay for investigating at the whim of the international recording companies.
If I haven’t said it enough: Famous musicians are the scummiest bunch of up-themselves narcisstic tosspots since the invention of the Socialist politician. Ever read a rockstar biography? Their sexual abuse of women and female children is disgusting. The amount of money they get paid to use on drugs is astounding. The only reason these arseholes get so much money is that various governments have laws which allow them to overcharge for pressing of a CD.
In NZ we give so bunch money to stupid recording artists, millions and millions. Including to untalented hobbiests such as that Fay Richwhite girl, wifebeaters such as J Williams, and otherwise unsavoury characters such as P Money. For what? For them to party overseas? And then come back and try sob stories about how they’re not making enough millions because some 14 year old downloaded their album as a torrent?
Fuckwits like RIANZ now make our internet bill more expensive. I say fuck them. We don’t need them. They’re a non-productive area of the economy – dump the bastards and allow blatant MP3 piracy in the country. People will still play music, people will still write music – there’s still that self-indulgent wankery in “artists” that means they want people to hear their crap whinings to three chords and a nifty strum – even if they can’t get a government-funded $100,000 for an album.
Vote:July 12th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Yep, increased ISP fees is exactly where this is heading. Awesome. Not.
Vote: