NZ asks public on anti-piracy

New Zealand Commerce Minister Simon Power has called for submissions on the country's development of new, tougher anti-piracy laws stemming from closed-door discussions over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Trade discussions are in their third round, involving delegations from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland, Morocco and the US.

Power has released a discussion paper outlining what is being discussed in the talks, with ISPs and safe harbour provisions being a central tenet.

The discussion paper asked if the agreement should require internet service providers to meet conditions in order to be able to be protected by safe harbour provisions, and what those conditions should be.

The paper also considered whether to hold the internet service provider liable if it was technically possible for it to take measures to prevent infringement and it knew that the infringement was occurring.

It also asked under what circumstances right holders should be able to obtain information from ISPs about the identity of users and whether ACTA countries should be "required" to promote the development of relationships between ISPs and right holders to deal with infringement.

In Australia, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has already said he would like the film and industries to make a code of conduct together.

The discussion paper has come as documents from the ACTA talks appear to have been leaked, laying out a draft agreement amongst member nations to address copyright enforcement on the internet.

NZ has been the most vocal of the nations according to the documents. The country has taken issue with wording, but also its premises, such that search engine providers might be held liable for content they link to.