There was a time recently when everyone in New Zealand listening to music on an iPod was a criminal. So was anyone who backed up a CD or made a mixtape. The reason was the Copyright Act of 1994 hadn't caught up with the technology. And in many ways it still hasn't.

The problem was "format shifting" (transferring a copyrighted recording to another format). In 2008 there were a number of changes made to the Act that means burning a CD or chucking music on your iPod is no longer illegal.

But there are still catches:

• You must legally own the music (ie you bought the CD legitimately) and haven't borrowed it from a friend or a library.
• The copy you make must only be used by members of your household (so no lending it to mates).
• You can't make a copy then sell the original, and you definitely can't sell the copy.
• No more than one copy is allowed per device.

That last one means you can't have two burned CDs or two copies on your iPod. And if you want to back-up your DVDs you're still stuck.

And this is the problem with the Copyright Act. The technology caught up and passed the Act a long time ago and now changes have to be rushed through.

The new on-demand websites and PVR systems like Tivo and MySky have allowed for "time-shifted" viewing. Time shifting is what many people have been doing for years: recording a TV show to watch later. Thank goodness that under Section 84 of the Copyright Act this is perfectly legal.

Internet material
Recent changes to the Act have focussed on the internet. Again this is a case of the Copyright Act running to catch up. And last year it ran into trouble.

Section 92A of the Act called for the instant termination of internet services for users who were accused of downloading copyright material. As the accusations didn't have to be proven it became a guilt-upon-accusation law.

Section 92A caused a wave of protest from internet users and a "black out" of social media sites like Twitter, and even dragged in the support of international celebrities like Stephen Fry. Section 92A has since been removed and the new section proposed will allow you to fight the accusation before your internet is cut off.

So the Act is really behind the times, but are we behind the rest of the world?

International law
A recent Consumers International survey on intellectual property laws in 34 countries, listed New Zealand at 14th most consumer-friendly overall (with a similar score to Australia, Malaysia, South Africa and China). Worldwide, the area of copyright that Consumers International listed most countries as performing poorly in was "Freedom to share and transfer" (New Zealand was graded a 'D').

The UK was listed as the third worst country. The laws are very different there - for example, format shifting is still illegal (although a recent report found only 15 percent of UK consumers knew it was illegal to copy a CD they owned onto an MP3 player).

Consumers International said that:

"[N]o countries are doing very much to promote consumers' freedom to share information and knowledge with their neighbours. They could do better if they devoted resources towards maintaining and promoting public domain material (to which no copyright applies), encouraged the take-up of Creative Commons licences and open source software, and helped to unlock the value of 'orphan works'."

Orphan works are those still protected by copyright but for which the copyright ownership cannot be ascertained - perhaps because the work was published anonymously, the author died without heir, or they simply can’t be found. Under copyright law, such works continue to be protected for a minimum of 50 years after the author's death.

Creative Commons (CC) is a set of copyright licences to encourage not-for-profit use of work. So instead of a blanket ban on use, CC specify how a work can be used fairly. As they are simple to use, many companies and government agencies are using them instead of copyright. Many internet resources such as blogs and photos are now published under CC.

As you can see, there are many issues being debated about copyright. And it's a good idea to know your rights about what you can and can’t do with copyrighted works.

 Hadyn Green - Technical Writer

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