Submisions on S92A

Simon Power has releases the 113 submissions on s92A of the Copyright Act, and commented:

“There seems to be general support for the proposals. They’re regarded as a significant improvement on the original.

“This gives me encouragement that we’re on track to developing a fair and balanced process to deal with online copyright infringement.

Time will tell.

A key concern raised by some submitters was the proposal to terminate internet accounts as a remedy to copyright infringement. It was felt termination was an unreasonable ‘remedy’, especially where multiple users of a single account could make identifying an infringer difficult.

However, there was general support for the Copyright Tribunal playing the role of independent third party arbiter if necessary.

Mr Power said he was confident all issues would be carefully considered in the policy paper that will go to Cabinet later this year.

Good to see mention of the resistance to termination as an option.

A summary of submissions is online here.

The EMA has rightly cited concerns many businesses may still be treated as ISPs under the proposal. But their suggestion that a better alternative is filtering or blocking of file sharing sites is concerning.

Several copyright groups have said they support the model, but two of the major US dominated groups have said they want less checks and balances.