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New Zealand is taking a hard look at modernizing its 1994 Copyright Act and is reportedly looking to the DMCA for clues. The text of the proposed bill is located here and is frightfully long and complex, so I will try to cut & paste the most interesting parts for those concerned after the jump.
The Bill gives effect to the Government's decisions to---
o so that the prohibition against the making, importing, hiring, and
selling of devices, services, or information designed to circumvent
"copy protection" be expanded to cover devices, services, or
information that circumvent technological protection measures that
protect all rights provided to copyright owners (including
communication, not just copying); and
o to facilitate the actual exercise of permitted acts where
technological measures have been applied: o introduce an offence (carrying a sentence of a fine not exceeding $150,000
or a term of imprisonment of up to 5 years, or both) for commercial
dealing in devices, services, or information designed to circumvent
technological protection measures: o introduce an offence provision (carrying a sentence of a fine not
exceeding $150,000 or a term of imprisonment of up to 5 years, or both)
for commercial dealing in works where the electronic rights management
information has been removed or altered: o introduce new exceptions for format-shifting of sound recordings for
private and domestic use, and for decompilation and error correction of
software. The circumvention bits of the bill seek to concentrate on giving people the means to bypass DRM schemes. It doesn't seem to make the act of circumventing copy-protection illegal, but it does make showing people how to an illegal act.
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