Broad Range of Issues Raised for Consideration in Copyright Issues Paper

On 23rd November 2018 an Issues Paper on the Copyright Act 1994 was released, with feedback sought (by the 5th April 2019) on a wide range of issues, which will influence the subsequent production of an Options Paper...

The Issues Paper is informed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) December 2016 Copyright and Creative Sector Report, which examined how the creative sector interacts with the copyright and registered design regimes in the context of a changing technological environment. Feedback is particularly sought on the following topics:

•     whether to introduce legislative objectives for the of the Copyright Act, what they should be and how they are weighted and interrelate;
•     the types of protected works and whether skill, judgment and labour is the correct test for copyright protection and is it being appropriately applied;
•     commissioning rule and the allocation of rights, how and whether rights should be allocated for AI works and better facilitating the reversion of rights from a publisher back to an author;
•     term of protection, exclusive rights and infringement provisions;
•     whether authorisation as infringement should include websites that link to infringing material;
•     specific issues with current rights (e.g communication to the public and communications works);
•     whether the term ‘object’ should be defined so as to specifically include intangible content;
•     moral rights, performers rights and technological protection measures;
•     fair dealing, exceptions for incidental and transient copying and exceptions to facilitate non-expressive uses & freedom of expression;
•     exceptions for libraries, archives and educational institutions;
•     exceptions relating to computer programmes, format shifting, time shifting, free public playing exceptions, reception and re-transmission of broadcast content;
•     whether to specifically prohibit agreements from contracting out of exceptions;
•     whether the safe harbour provisions for ISPs should be broadened to include search engines and platforms for user generated content;
•     the efficiency of the market regarding licensing and assignment;
•     the role of Collective Management Organisations;
•     the role of the Copyright Tribunal in licensing disputes;
•     impediments to the use or availability of orphan works;
•     whether to broaden the unjustified proceedings provisions to include groundless threats of legal action;
•     the adequacy of border protection measures and whether the $5,000 bond is prohibitive;
•     improving the utility of the infringing file sharing regime
•     additional enforcement measures for online infringements, including website blocking injunctions;
•     whether ISPs should contribute towards the cost of enforcement;
•     the types of criminal offences and the size of the penalties;
•     whether industrial designs should have dual protection under the Copyright Act and the Design Act 1953, as this favours foreign designers and can lull NZ based designers into relying too heavily on copyright and thereby losing the ability to get industrial design protection in foreign jurisdictions;
•     whether to join the Hague Agreement on Industrial Designs;
•     whether changes can or should be made to the Copyright Act in response to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Wai 262 Report, which recommended introducing distinct forms of protection for taonga and matauranga Maori works instead of changes to the IP Acts.

Author: Quinn Miller

//piperpat.com/news/article/broad-range-of-issues-raised-for-consideration-in-copyright-issues-paper