In the NBR article I was asked about a “deal” that NetSafe has with RIANZ to act as an  intermediary between schools and the rights holders. NetSafe has an agreement with RIANZ (Recording Industry Association of New Zealand) that allows us to act on behalf of schools (should the school so wish) in order to try and establish how these infringements have occured, and how the situation can be resolved.

It seems that this has caused some concern, with one tweeter (eey0re) accusing NetSafe of being “morally incoherent”. I was a little taken aback by this so thought I should lay out what is involved and try to explain why we did what we did.

For us this isn’t an issue of morality. NetSafe isn’t an organisation built around moral values. I’m not suggesting we are amoral either, but NetSafe exists to build capability in New Zealanders online, creating confident and capable internet users. Part of this means that we ensure that New Zealanders are aware of and are able to act within the law as it stands. That’s part of being a successful Digital Citizen.

The introduction on September 1st of the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act changed the copyright landscape for New Zealand significantly. The law states that it

provides rights owners with a special regime for taking enforcement action against people who infringe copyright through file sharing

The first time that they have been able to take action without the use of the court system. The action thay can take is to record an IP address that they believe to have infringed their copyright, contact the ISP that owns it, and instruct them to send a notice to the account holder.

It was obvious to us that somewhere in this change that schools were going to find themselves in the middle of a situation that they felt was somewhat unfair. Since part of what we do as an organisation is to provide support for New Zealand schools in matters of cyber safety and cyber security this meant that we would be dealing with schools as the notices arrived on their doorsteps.

We approached the rights holders groups to see if we could provide some room for schools to deal with infringements happening on their networks. The results of the discussions that we had is the agreement that we have with RIANZ, and an on-going dialogue with NZFACT.

No one is pushing any moral boundaries here. We are an organisation that has a contractual arrangement with the Ministry of Education to provide a service to schools. This agreement is part of that contract. Its contents aren’t any secret.

If a school contacts NetSafe and ask us to work on their behalf then we will contact RIANZ, inform them that they have sent a notice to a school, ask them to suspend that notice for a period of 8 weeks while we work with the school to look at how this breach of the law occured on their network. No judgements, no admission of guilt, no apologies, no propaganda. Schools do not give up their rights under the law by taking advantage of this agreement and no school has to work with us. The school remains in control of the process, we are simply there to assist if required.

To me this isn’t incoherent, morally or otherwise. Just a pragmatic solution for schools to a very real concern expressed by many school boards and leadership teams all across New Zealand.

NetSafe TV 16– 22 May (2m):

Related links:

• Google Street View ’single biggest breach of privacy in history’
• Online list puts street in touch
• Online expert: Shocks will turn to yawns
• MGM v. Grokster

You can watch the full presentation below (no Q&As sorry, we’ll be asking people for filming permission next time round):

The video last 38 minutes and should give you a good introduction to the history of copyright, the debate around the high profile Section 92A legislation and the challenges posed to copyright owners in the digital age where DRM and a paradigmatic shift in many business models is proving as controversial as the introduction of the printing press back in 1450.

Send Lee an email if you’d like to be on the monthly meeting invite list.

Whilst the review is big news in certain circles – InternetNZ have quickly responded calling the proposal a mixed bag and NZFact  (that’s the NZ Federation Against Copyright Theft)  have welcomed the prompt release. Up and down the country, most people will be thinking… ‘who cares?’

They should. Its an important debate. This is the information age. Its not just music and movies we’re talking about. Our lives, our work, and crucially our innovative ideas will be online. If we can’t protect what we create, then how can we extract value from it? If we can’t extract value, why would we make the investment required to create it?

And what of the ISP’s. They’ve successfully argued the ‘we’re just the postal service’ (and you don’t ask NZPost to decide what mail to deliver) defence thus far. Will they be compelled to undertake some role in copyright enforcement? And why stop there? Surely we can then expect (compel) them to take a much wider ’policing’ role. Is that fair. Does it reflect an ISP’s role as an internet provider?

Is termination of an Internet account disproportionate to the crime of copyright theft (as InternetNZ claim). What value do we put on intellectual property – and what value do we put on access to the internet? Is it a fundamental right to be able to access the net? The research we’re seeing indicates that it probably should be – as people are considerably disadvantaged without it.

Who will get cut off? How would the tribunal make that decision? Surely they wouldn’t want to cut off a family because a single family member infringed, or a business because of a single employee. Does that mean you could avoid being cut off by using a shared computer?

Are the big movie and music labels fighting a losing battle? Is the only solution a new business model with many smaller companies as some internet commentators would have us beleive? Nobody feels much sympathy for the big companies  - but are people really selecting who they steal from?

If you have an opinion on the Copyright Law, them you can taka a look at the full proposal and make a submission here.