Many years ago, too many to reveal here, I purchased a smart-looking radio which had a dual tapedeck.
Not only did the device, for want of an older word, enable me to tape (download) the top 20 each Sunday night on to a blank tape, but I could also copy one tape on to another and give the copy to a friend.
Sitting as we were, at an end-of-school party, I copied Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells A Story for my mate as we huddled around a nearly empty keg of beer.
My memory might be fading but I am reasonably sure that no-one dressed in black came and knocked on my door threatening to disconnect my radio if I persisted.
Admittedly, all of us bought records and tapes back then, but sharing (peer-to-peer) by copying was seen as an ordinary activity.
Can you imagine being in a blade-shearing shed in the back of beyond with no power and no radio. Tapes and batteries were a godsend.
Fast forward to 2011 and we find ourselves threatened with being disconnected from the internet for repeat copyright infringement.
I am not advocating that we all illegally download because that, of course, takes away valuable resources from our homegrown talent.
But there has to be a better way.
A generation of New Zealanders have grown up believing that information, music and movies are out there somewhere waiting to be read, listened to and watched.
Paying is a foreign concept.
The Government's plans of protecting copyright by terminating access to the internet is totally unworkable. Even the $15,000 fine is a joke. Had the ministers and officials developing this policy never heard of proxies (not someone voting on your behalf)?
With more smart devices per head of population than almost any country in the world, New Zealanders were never going to fall for that.
That is why the announcement last week by Clare Curran that Labour would introduce a Bill removing the ability of judges to deny internet access to people caught downloading files illegally was welcomed universally by the technology community.
If Labour won the election, it would act within 90 days to remove the so-called termination clauses from the Copyright Act, Ms Curran, the party's communications and IT spokeswoman told Signal.
Labour would also undertake a review of the Copyright Act with the aim of introducing a new Bill within 18 months to update and extend the framework for digital copyright in New Zealand.
Termination was unsustainable, she said.
"Labour voted for the Bill in April because we stuck by a commitment to work with the Government to enable internet service providers and rights holders to reach a compromise on copyright law.
"That compromise meant that termination of internet access as an ultimate penalty for repeat copyright infringement remained in the Bill but could not be enacted without the consent of the minister. It was clear this won't work in the long term."
Access to the internet should be part of the Bill of Rights, Ms Curran, the Dunedin South MP, said.
It was the same principle as trying to stop people having water.
"You don't turn off someone's electricity because they are growing dope under lights and you don't cut off their phone for using it for doing drug deals. Those are criminal acts. Peer-to-peer sharing is civil disobedience and needs to be dealt with in that way."
Labour remained committed to protecting the rights of the creators of the works.
The debate was about shifting power, access to information, outdated business models and the immense potential of the internet to change the world, she said.
No parliament anywhere knew what to do about it yet, but Labour was committed to finding solutions.
Ms Curran suggested the answer could lie in a Pacific version of Netflix, a Nasdaq-listed company that Commerce Minister Simon Power had apparently not heard of.
Netflix is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States and Canada and flat-rate DVD-by-mail in the US.
The company was established in 1997. In April, Netflix announced that it had 23.6 million subscribers.
Netflix plans to expand into the European market, starting in Spain by 2012.
Ms Curran said if a site offering television programmes, along with the others provided by Netflix was established, people would become used to paying for downloads.
"People will go to where the content is whether it is legal or illegal."
The Copyright (Infringing File sharing) Amendment Act came into force on September 1. Copyright owners can now send evidence of alleged infringements to internet service providers who will then send up to three infringement notices to the account holder.
