InternetNZ Seminar Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill ISP Perspective David Diprose May 2010

Introduction I’ve been asked to present an ISP perspective I work for Vodafone, we are a member of ISPANZ, I lead the TCF copyright policy working party But I’m not officially representing any of these organisations I intend to cover the following points: – ISP involvement in copyright – New amendment - education is key – ISP role - identifying the infringer – Further refinement needed – The bigger picture

ISP involvement in copyright Copyright infringement is an issue between copyright ownwer & infringers - ISPs are not much more than a conduit - we’d rather not be involved The internet can be used for all sorts of purposes, good & bad - our services can be involved in all sorts of illegal activities, not just copyright infringement Internationally there has often been real conflict between copyright owners & ISPs – witness the situation with iiNet in Australia In NZ we have taken a more co-operative approach; we worked closely with copyright owners when drafting the earlier TCF code of practice

New Amendment – education is key We think the new infringing file sharing amendment is a significant improvement over the previous attempt The TCF had significant input to the MED on how this would work & we are generally happy with the role we have to play We strongly support the main purpose being educational We believe that doing this well will make a real difference to the scale of the problem In fact many of us would prefer that all we had to do was identify alleged infringers & forward educational notices The rest of what we are required to do is much more work & will involve a very real cost to our businesses

ISP role - identifying the infringer We recognise that often we are the only party that can identify alleged infringers & generally accept that as a fair & reasonable role to play It is similar to assisting the police identify suspected offenders in other areas of law breaking We are required to keep records that match IP addresses to the customers that used them at any given point in time; so we can correctly pass on the appropriate notice But we are also required to identify repeat infringement – this will either be significant system development or alternatively intensive manual reporting & analysis This will be a very real cost to our businesses & it has been recognised that we should be reimbursed for that

Further refinement needed There are still a few details we think need to be improved… Implementation timeframe too short Must retain cost-recovery fees Need industry standard templates for all notices Termination is pointless & is complicated by term contracts & bundles Do we have to record infringements per copyright owner or aggregate for all? What records do we have to keep?

The bigger picture Education is the key to deal with widespread small scale infringement Punitive action should only be necessary for serious large scale infringement What is really needed is a 21 st century online content distribution model that better balances the interests of copyright owners & end-users, thus minimising the need for copyright abuse