Dallas Buyers Club fuss shows NZ got it right

The furore over the Dallas Buyers Club case in Australia shows that, compared to our friends over the ditch, New Zealand got it pretty right when it changed the Copyright Act in 2011 and implemented its three-strikes regime to counter infringing file sharing in music and movies.

"The New Zealand system is better for all parties than what we've seen happen in Australia" says InternetNZ Chief Executive Jordan Carter.

"The rights holders know how much it is to lodge a claim and how to do it, the Internet Service Providers (ISP) know their obligations, and if an infringement notice is sent to an ISP’s customer, the privacy of that individual's details are kept to just the ISP.

"The New Zealand Government at the time is to be applauded for implementing what seems to be a sensible - and workable - regime."

The situation that Australia has found itself in is the result of having no modernised legal framework to deal with emerging technologies such as downloading film and music.

"The trend away from infringing file sharing started when easy and cheap access to legal content became available. From the iTunes store for music & movies, to providers of streaming access to TV series and movies like NetFlix or Spotify, cheap and legal access is now a reality. Infringing file sharing is slowly becoming a thing of the past," Jordan Carter says.

ENDS

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