Courts should be given the power to ban serious copyright infringers from opening new internet accounts when they are already subject to a suspension notice, says the New Zealand Law Society in a submission on the controversial Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill.

The commerce select committee heard submissions on the Bill at Parliament this morning.

"The Bill proposes that District Courts be able to order a six month suspension of a person's Internet Services Provider (ISP) account for serious copyright infringement," said the convenor of the society's intellectual property law committee, Clive Elliott.

"However, during this period, it appears that there is nothing to stop that person from opening an account with another ISP and immediately continuing illegal file sharing."

Under the proposed regime, ISP's would have no responsibility except for issuing infringement notices. The law society supports proposals that make copyright holders rather than ISP's responsible for enforcing court-ordered bans, but "the Bill's enforcement procedures could be tightened", said Mr Elliott.

"The Bill should include a power to allow the court to order that a person cannot open an account with another ISP during the period of the suspension."

"This would remove uncertainty about how infringement notices are issued, clarifying whether copyright owners or ISP's are responsible for dealing with issues where infringement notices are challenged, and removing restrictions on the Copyright Tribunal's ability to award costs."

In its submission to the committee, the Telecommunications Carrier's Forum argues that an alternative approach would work better, whereby the ISP's only role would be to receive and match evidence of file sharing breaches, and notifying the account holder.

"ISP's recognise that they are the only party that can match the IP address alleged to have infringed, to the account holder.  This is the only unique competency that ISP's have in this process."

Warnings should then be sent by the Copyright Tribunal, which would mean copyright holders would only have to deal with the tribunal, rather than a range of ISP's, when seeking suspension notices.

"It will not be as easy for a repeat infringer to hide by moving from ISP to ISP, as the Copyright Tribunal will have records of previous second/third notices sent to the same account holder," the forum says.

"This should assist the copyright owner in taking legal action against the serious infringers."

However, copyright owners should compensate ISP's for the set-up and transaction costs associated with infringement detection, the forum says.

A contrary view from APRA/AMCOS - a music and film industry lobby - argued that "ISP's are both central to the problem and the solution" because they gain revenue through file-sharing, even if copyright holders do not.

"ISP's must play a significant role in the proposed process that reflects the volume of illegal peer-to-peer traffic utilising their services," APRA/AMCOS said.

However, Internet search giant Google warns in its submission that the Bill now contemplates a "vast expansion" of the originally announced intention to target peer-to-peer file sharing by appearing to cover any downloaded material.

In a submission echoed by library operators, Google was also concerned that unless the new law targeted individual infringers rather than ISP account holders, libraries, internet cafes and other Internet access points available to the public could be targeted for suspension because of the actions of individual users.

- BusinessDesk