"Anything you can do, we can do better?" Ireland joins the copyright review queue

St Columba started the trend, daringly copying a restricted-
access public domain work.  If he lived today, would he be
the patron saint of Google Book and Wikileaks?

It's not just the Brits who have decided to reassess their IP rules in the not-quite-so-new-any-more internet age: the Irish are doing it too. In "Firms hampered by failure to keep law up to date with internet age", eminent scholar and lawyer TJ McIntyre argues in the Irish Times that much of the Irish law governing the internet is archaic, restrictive and hampers growth, which explains why the Taoiseach (Irish for 'prime minister' or, the Kat understands, an old Erse term for 'man who graciously accepts the credit when things work out but gets first choice at blaming someone else when things don't') has announced his support for a review of European and Irish copyright law, stating [and does this sound familiar, anyone?] “it is time to review our copyright legislation, and examine the balance between the rights holder and the consumer, to ensure that our innovative companies operating in the digital environment are not disadvantaged against competitors”. The article continues:

"This is a welcome development for the Irish internet industry, which has argued for some time that copyright reform would be desirable. It follows a seminar last month, hosted by Digital Rights Ireland, Google and the Institute of International and European Affairs, where speakers from businesses such as Boards.ie, UPC and Google pointed out the practical problems copyright laws can create.

In particular, one of the reasons why the US has been so successful at encouraging internet innovation is that US copyright law includes a doctrine known as fair use. This permits the use of portions of a copyrighted work so long as the normal economic exploitation of the work is not undermined.

Irish law, by comparison, has no equivalent to the flexible doctrine of fair use. Instead, there is a finite and restrictive list of exceptions to copyright, hampering the ability of Irish businesses to develop new forms of internet services.

Reform of the law – if it addresses this and similar issues – will help promote the growth of new businesses in this area and avoid the loss of jobs to more internet-friendly jurisdictions, such as the US.

However, this is not a uniquely Irish development. It follows action at European Union level and in other countries such as Britain. Last month, David Cameron said UK copyright laws were out of date and needed to be reviewed to “make them fit for the internet age”.

The Irish Government will have to move quickly to avoid falling behind Britain and other European bodies that have taken the initiative in this area.... [the article then discusses the need to reexamine online rules for defamation]".

The IPKat thinks that the timing of this review is brilliant.  Since Ireland's copyright laws so closely resemble those of the UK, both pro- and anti-copyright lobbyists can use the same submissions twice over, so long as they remember to get the name of the right country at the top.  Merpel says, I'm just trying to imagine where Google would be today if it hadn't been restricted by all these tiresomely old-fashioned copyright laws in countries like the UK and Ireland; it would probably be quite a big business now, not just a little hole-in-the-corner search engine ...

Irish Patents Office web page -- which at the time of posting of this item has no details of the review -- here

Thanks to Deirdre Kilroy (LK Shields) for the link!

Kiwi Parliament puts controversial copyright law on hold

The IPKat's academic antipodean friend Louise Longdin has sent him this information concerning recent attempts at copyright reform in New Zealand:

"A highly controversial and heavy-handed amendment to New Zealand’s copyright law that greatly widens the responsibilities and liability of ISPs has been put on hold. It was poised to come into force today (28 February). The postponement of the new law (described in today’s New Zealand Herald Editorial as “sledgehammer like”) was sparked off by protestors demonstrating outside Parliament with mouths tapped shut and a week long nationwide, voluntary blacking out of internet sites by thousands of bloggers and social networkers. Stephen Fry, the well known actor, comedian and author also blacked out his Twitter profile in sympathy and an online petition was signed by 10,000 protesters. Section 92A of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 had been passed by the previous Government. The contentious provision, originally taken out at the Select Committee stage, was popped back in at the last minute by the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage when the Bill returned to the House for its final reading.

Section 92A mandates that ISPs adopt and “reasonably implement” a policy that provides for the termination “in appropriate circumstances” of the account of a “repeat infringer.” The amendment is considered to have overstepped the mark largely on two grounds. First, an ISP is very widely defined under the Act. It includes any person who offers the transmission, routing, or providing of connections for digital online communications, between or among points specified by a user, of material of the user's choosing or who hosts material on websites or other electronic retrieval systems that can be accessed by a user. Thus it easily subsumes, and turns into active gatekeepers, not only the traditional ISPs but also all other persons and organisations who provide access to the internet for their employees, clients, teenage family members, flatmates, tenants or the public. Thus turned into downstream ISPS are libraries, shops, cafes, bars, companies, universities, parents, landlords, head tenants, businesses, schools, banks, medical practices as well as airports and railway stations. This would have been a real sea change for New Zealand for, unlike some countries (such as France and Italy in the writer’s own recent experience),  it has never been the custom in this country for libraries, internet cafes or the providers of WIFI hotspots to require photo identification before allowing members of the public access to the internet.

The second reason Section 92A is seen as unworkable and unfair is that Parliament has provided little guidance as to who might be identified as a repeat infringer other than to say in an unhelpfully circular fashion, under s 92A(2), that it means “a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using one or more of the Internet services of the ISP to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.”

Internet users can be potentially disconnected on weak and flimsy evidence. There is no penalty attached to making an unjustified allegation of infringement. Absent too is any means for ISPs to have claims of infringement independent verified. ISPs are veritable piggies in the middle. Even if they act in good faith they are exposed in two directions: to those they disconnect unjustifiably and to copyright owners if they do not. Furthermore, even where a work exists and has clearly been infringed, pinpointing who the real infringer is will not always be easy when an internet account is used by several persons in a business or organisation.

While the government has deferred enforcement of the amendment (ostensibly until March 27) work is meant to be done not on drafting a better and clearer law but on hammering out a voluntary enforcement code acceptable to both copyright owners (particularly those with rights in movies, TV shows and music) and internet service providers. Should this not eventuate, the government has indicated that the amendment will be suspended".

The IPKat is most impressed at the degree of concern that has been expressed and very much hopes that a fair and workable settlement which is agreeable to both sides can be found. Merpel however wonders whether the blacking out of a Twitter profile by a celebrity isn't the ultimate act of pathetic gesture politics. 

Things you never knew about the kiwi here
Recipes for kiwis here