Studios in 'skynet' copyright talks

United States movie and music studios have talked to internet
providers about establishing a centralised facility that would
process copyright infringement notices on behalf internet
providers, industry executives have revealed.

It is understood the negotiations have involved the
Telecommunications Carriers Forum (TCF) and the goal was to make
it more practical for rights holders to use the controversial 
''Skynet'' law that came into effect two months ago to crack down
on internet piracy.

TCF chief executive David Stone said it was not currently
involved in the talks on the issue. He would not comment on what
had been discussed or whether the TCF expected a future role.

Internet users can be fined between $275 and $15,000 by the
Copyright Tribunal for illegally accessing copyrighted material,
such as pirated movies, over the internet.

However, the Government took the sting out of the law change in
August by allowing internet providers to charge rights holders $25
to process each infringement notice sent under the ''three
strikes'' regime, on top of a $200 fee to the Copyright Tribunal
for each prosecution. Those fees are due to be reviewed in March.

InternetNZ chief executive Vikram Kumar said the society was not
aware of any infringement notices having been issued. Telecom and
the country's second-largest internet provider, TelstraClear,
confirmed they had received none.

Kumar believed Hollywood film makers and the music industry were
afraid of establishing an international precedent by paying
anything to internet providers to forward notices to their
customers, but probably wanted to keep their options open.

He believed they might wait to see what happened in a landmark
court case with internet provider iiNet in Australia in December
before settling on their tactics. The court case will determine
whether iiNet is liable under Australian law for illegal downloads
by its customers.

A central facility for processing copyright infringement notices
could allow internet providers here to determine whether those
notices were customers' first, second or third ''strike'', he
said.

That could reduce their administration costs, in turn allowing
rights holders to make a case to the Government for a cut in the
fees.

Kumar said the society had not been involved in the talks and
expressed concern about internet users' privacy if a centralised
system for processing infringement notices went ahead.

A spokeswoman for Commerce Minister Simon Power said the
Government had not brokered the discussions, but noted internet
providers could voluntarily lower their fee for processing
notices.

Kumar said that given the urgency under which the copyright law
change was passed, he imagined there would be some ''red faces''
in government.

Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett confirmed the TCF's
involvement in the talks with rights holders and said Orcon was
supportive of the discussions ''up to a point''. But from Orcon's
perspective, there was a workable system already in place. His
message to rights holder was ''if you want to send us notices,
send us notices''.

Orcon hired two temporary staff to deal with an expected flood
of infringement notices when the ''Skynet'' regime came into
effect in September, but had since let them go as there had been
nothing for them to do, Bartlett said.

Telecom spokeswoman Anna Skerten said it had invested
significantly to put a system in place allowing it to comply with
its obligations under the Copyright Act amendment.

''This includes keeping staff on standby in the event we receive
a significant volume of notices. To date, we have not received any
notices, so have been unable to recover any of our costs for being
prepared.''

Telecom had participated in TCF discussions with rights holder
groups, she said. ''We have been, and continue to be, open to
dialogue with rights holder groups to identify ways that might
lessen the burden of complying with the copyright regime. We don't
however agree that Telecom should bear the costs of doing so,
simply to enable rights holder groups to send more infringement
notices to our customers.''

- BusinessDay.co.nz

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