A chorus of IT professionals made a controversial call that copyright had no place on the internet at the inaugural NetHui in Auckland yesterday run by lobby group InternetNZ.
Adviser Laurence Millar told the conference that ''copyright is dead [digital]''. Trying ''improve the way that copyright is operating is trying to prolong something that should be put down'', he said.
He likened the internet to a giant copying machine and said the law was not going to stop people copying from it.
''If we are going to introduce laws that artificially put up barriers for copying then we are criminalising an increasing portion of the population.''
Internet consultant Jordan Carter said individual jurisdictions should be able to draw the boundaries around where the balance between producers and consumers and intellectual property lies.
He said New Zealand should be able to set its own rules on these issues, not be bullied by bigger powers elsewhere.
'If we decide these things internationally in forums where the loudest and most powerful voices are on a different side to New Zealand, then it's just a downside for us.''
Queensland University of Technology's Anne Fitzgerald, a copyright lawyer of twenty years, said there was ''a lot of aggro in the room''.
Copyright wasn't just about the interests of multinational corporations, she said.
''It's an extensive set of rights that can be used for small companies and individuals, particularly in the global world of the internet. When we look at how we can assert our contribution and recognition of our creativity - the thing we have is copyright.''
The New Zealand Government has recently enacted the illicit peer-to-peer filesharing legislation, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendent Act.
Carter said the most important issue was the price the internet providers would be able to charge the rightholders for upholding their copyright when they lodge a notice of infringement. The Government was still considering what that cost should be.
The copyright issue will get another airing tomorrow when one of North America's leading academics, Lawrence Lessig, makes a keynote speech as the conference ends.
He's widely known in the global internet community as a vocal proponent of reduced legal restrictions on digital copyright, and a champion of notions of fair use and free culture.
(Source: The Dominion Post)
