The agreement is scheduled to be signed in Tokyo on Saturday, by representatives of Japan, Australia, Canada, the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and Switzerland. However, ratification, required for full participation in the treaty, is a step beyond signing. Before that happens, necessary changes to domestic law "would be subject to the usual ratification process, including public consultation and scrutiny by Parliament", Groser says.

The minister's office has sent Computerworld a list of amendments that will be required for ratification. These include powers for border agencies to prevent export as well as import of goods allegedly contravening copyright and will allow Customs officers to stop a shipment on suspicion of a breach, even in the absence of any formal notification from the rights owner of an alleged contravention.

One item under the copyright heading is puzzling. NZ's copyright law will be changed, it says, to "extend the current prohibition of the use of TPM [technological protection measure] circumvention devices to cover a slightly broader range of devices."

A technological protection measure is any kind of technology that controls what can be done with a recorded or transmitted work, for example to prevent copying or free playing of paid content. However there is no current "prohibition of the use of TPM circumvention devices" in New Zealand law.

The Copyright Act prohibits sale or distribution of TPM circumvention devices, but deliberately does not forbid their use. This is to provide an escape route for someone who needs to circumvent the protection to do something permitted under New Zealand law; for example to use a portion of a work in research or review, or to use a work that is not protected by copyright but which is in a collection of works clumsily protected by an overarching TPM.