Copyright Infringement Processing Fee remains at $25

Chris Keall at NBR reports:

The government is keeping the fee for an infringement notice under the file sharing law at $25, Commerce Minister Craig Foss said this afternoon in a briefing paper to cabinet.

NZ FACT – representing the major Hollywood studios – had wanted the fee dropped to “pennies”.

The Recording Industry Association of NZ (Rianz), representing multinational and local music labels, submitted the fee needed to be dropped to $2 or less for it to send a serious number of infringement notices.

This is excellent news. A drop would have seen ISPs not getting reimbursed for the costs they incur in processing these notices, and could have led to an avalanche of them.

The briefing paper reveals the number of notices sent by four of the five largest ISPs:

Telecom: 1238
Vodafone: 417
TelstraClear: 398
Orcon: 115

What I am interested in, is how many got second strikes or third strikes. If those who download copyrighted material stop after a first strike warning, then the regime is working effectively.