Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011

You may have heard that the Government has passed a law called the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011. This law allows the owners of copyrighted material (rights owners) to enforce their rights against people who use file-sharing applications to illegally download copyrighted material (content).

Orcon respects the rights of all property owners to determine how and if they make their property available; however our main responsibility is to you, our customer.

As an account holder you should know that the law says:

• Liability for alleged copyright infringement lies with the person who 'owns' the Internet account. If the account is in your name then the liability, according to the law, is with you, no matter who pays the bill or who used your account, whether with or without your permission.
• Rights owners can record the Internet Protocol (IP) address of who has downloaded their content and pass this on to the Internet Service Provider, (such as Orcon) which owns that IP address so that a notice can be sent.
• All Internet Service Providers (Internet Protocol Address Providers as defined in the Act), including Orcon, must action an infringement notice received from a rights owner, which may include sending you an infringement notice.

Please note: We do not proactively monitor what you download using your Orcon Internet connection. The new law does not change this, but it does require us to send 'notices' on behalf of the owners of copyrighted material.

If you have any questions or concerns about the new law you can contact the Ministry of Economic Development by clicking here.

If you have any questions about the availability of copyright material in New Zealand you can contact the Copyright Council by clicking here.

Finally, if you or others using your Internet connection do not use it to download copyright infringing material then you have nothing to worry about.

If you have any specific questions relating to the notification process at Orcon please email [email protected].

Click here to view Orcon's Annual Compliance Report with s122 of the Copyright Act.