
New Zealand Officials To Scrap Copyright Law; Start From Scratch - vaksel
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090430/1400034708.shtml
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anigbrowl
While New Zealand is not a world hub of IP, this should be closely watched. It
will be extremely interesting to compare the terms of the 'rebooted'
legislation with the existing incrementally altered system. I can't guess
whether it will cut down the typical 'function creep' of incremental
legislative extension or result in a major rebalancing in the same direction
as the function creep (ie on behalf of copyright holders). I'll be surprised
if it results in a tilt in favor of consumers.

To the extent that HN has members or members have contacts over there, I hope
someone will advocate alternative models such as Creative Commons licenses and
similar, and argue on behalf of their legal utility. Another copyright issue
that is little discussed is that of authorship. In Europe, if I write a book
and you buy it, I may sell the copyright to you outright but I retain the
right to be identified as the author. In the US no such right exists.

I'm kinda stating the obvious here, but I hope people will pay close attention
to this. It's not often the legal codebase is thrown out and rewritten, and
this is a 'use it or lose it' situation for NZ citizens, whose participation
and reaction will be closely studied by legislators and copyright holders
elsewhere.

Given the depressing manner in which US legislators have catered only to large
copyright holders to undermine the original intention of the copyright process
and basically cut off the natural flow of IP into the public domain, this has
long-term implications for all of us.

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spectre
John Key (Prime Minister) and the National party have a history of selling out
to business interests (especially overseas). Never the less the music and film
industries here aren't as powerful as in the US (think of a NZ musician or
movie other than LOTR). The ISP's blocked the last copyright legislation they
tried to get through, hopefully they will continue to have a backbone.

