Wednesday, June 25, 2014



The Internet Party on copyright

The Internet Party released its copyright policy today, requiring a first principles review of the Copyright Act 1994 and a host of changes, including legal protection for circumventing geoblocking, broader fair use exceptions (including parody and satire), effectively gutting the skynet law, and removing any penalty for copying works unavailable legally in New Zealand. Disappointingly they're not saying anything about the length of copyright, but that's difficult given the international agreements we're party to. However, they will add protection for derivative works based on orphan works.

Overall, it looks pretty good, and an important contribution to the debate. The question now is whether other parties will respond with their own policies, or try to pretend that this isn't an issue.