Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill
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Well, it seems this one flew in just under my radar…
New Zealand has passed an amendment to the Copyright Bill to include “New Technologies”, which refers to the digital medium.
Most alarming in this bill is the inclusion of the DMCA-like offence of owning “Digital lockpicks” to free the data which you already own. The new clause makes it illegal to circumvent a copyright protection, even for personal use such as format-shifting (although there are limited format-shifting provisions in the bill). Since I can’t seem to find a copy of the actual text, it’s unknown how this will affect products such as region-free DVD players and the like.
Considering I have personally circumvented copyright protection using a black marker, a shift key and a line out in the past we shall see if this law is as “effective” as the USA’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act. At the same time, I’m happy they didn’t take some of the more draconian provisions from the DMCA such as the infamous “takedown notice”.
Hopefully I can get a look at it shortly.
Update: It’s worse than I thought, Notice & Takedown provisions are there in full force. Herald.