The issue of how New Zealand will deal with unauthorized sharing of copyright material via the internet has taken another interesting turn. Current enforcement measures under the Copyright Act 1994 are considered ineffective. Section 92A of the Act was intended to provide a way to address this problem by forcing ISPs to have a policy providing for account termination, but was met with a lot of public concern. Readers may recall that at the time of our last article of 15 July 2009 Government were considering amending the section. On Tuesday, Minister of Commerce Simon Power introduced the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill (the Bill) to Parliament which if passed will repeal s92A in favour of a new set of enforcement measures.
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In an eagerly awaited decision of the Federal Court of Australia, Justice Gordon held that no copyright subsists in the White Pages and Yellow Pages directories.
The decision has significant ramifications for producers of compilations and databases of factual information (such as telephone directories, public transport timetables and horse racing guides) as it suggests that such works may not be capable of copyright protection.
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Recently announced cooperation between IPONZ and their Australian counterpart provides new momentum towards harmonized trade mark examinations. As a result New Zealand businesses operating in Australia should be less likely to find applications for their brands treated differently across the Tasman.
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As a predominantly English speaking country, the Latin alphabet is an all-encompassing aspect of communication. Its use as the sole internet domain script has most likely never seemed problematic. But how does this sit with more than half of the world’s internet users who live by non-Latin alphabet scripts?
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Readers may recall that at the time of our 22 September article, concerns were being raised over the proposed Google Books settlement agreement. On 13 November 2009 an amended settlement agreement which has implications for New Zealand authors was filed with the United States District Court for consideration.
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