technoculture314-09

At the tutorial on Thursday, we discussed New Zealand's copyright law and someone asked if similar legislation had been introduced in other countries. I found this article in The Sydney Morning Herald which reported on the French lower house of parliament recently passing a law that would cut off internet access for those caught pirating movies and music. Nick Galvin reported: “If the bill makes it onto the statute books, draconian is not the word. Offenders face having their access suspended, fines of up to almost $500,000 and even jail time. Oh, and Parents will be held responsible if their children are caught with illegal downloads.” Not surprisingly The French entertainment industry, is behind the legislation. New Zealand legislators are reconsidering section 92A, but as discussed in the tutorial it's more likely we will fall into line with American legislators and introduce stiff copyright laws. The issue of copyright is a hot topic among publishers, journalists and authors. Writers can be a feisty lot and the debate about Google Print shows that there's still some might in the pen. The New Zealand Society of Authors lashed out at Google, claiming that the search engine giant has “stolen our intellectual property, our most valuable possession.” Here's the back story: In 2005 the US Authors Guild and a coalition of publishers filed a class-action lawsuit against Google for copyright infringement. Google argued fair use. In October 2008 formal resolution was cut short when the parties announced they had reached an out-of-court settlement. This settlement is subject to a final approval hearing in a New York Federal Court on 7 October 2009. Authors affected by the settlement had until last month to opt-in or opt-out of Google and among the high-profile New Zealand authors choosing to opt-out were Margaret Mahy. NZ Herald recently reported that The US Justice Department has advised a federal judge that a proposed legal settlement giving Google the digital rights to millions of out of print books threatens to thwart competition and drive up prices unless it's revised. The latest missive comes from The Authors Guild of America, who are suing Google Inc in a federal court, alleging that the web search leader's bid to digitise the book collections of major libraries infringes individual authors' copyrights. What's interesting is that Google Print has exploded into the top ranks of US internet sites, rising to the 30th most visited site for the week ending September 17 from 90th a week earlier. Google's official response to books online is that it directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the programme. And yes, only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more. But books, like music are still subject to illegal downloads. The Guardian reported that pirated copies of Dan Brown’s new Robert Langdon thriller The Lost Symbol started appearing across the internet only a day after the book was published: available for download via peer-to-peer sites including The Pirate Bay and Scribd.com. Nothing like a good thriller to incite a crime.