KEY POINTS:
Songs, videos and cartoons with a political edge are likely to fall foul of the Electoral Finance Bill if they are published in cyberspace.
What traditional broadcasters can air or screen in terms of political content is covered by the Broadcasting Act, which sets out when something classed
as an "election programme" can be aired.
However, media published in cyberspace are expected to be covered by the Electoral Finance Bill and its broad definition of what constitutes a publication - being any form of words or graphics.
Prominent National Party-aligned blogger David Farrar - who is at the forefront of the campaign against the bill - said a radio station could probably legitimately play a song promoting a political message, so long as it did so solely for the purpose of informing or entertaining its audience.
"If they had an audio file on their website of that song, that may breach. If they do a podcast, because that isn't a radio programme as defined by the Broadcasting Act, they may be in trouble," Mr Farrar said.
"Ironically what you have is ZMFM who decide this is an entertaining song, yes they can play it on radio quite clearly, I would say, without it being a breach of the bill.
"However, if Joe Public hears this song and thinks this is great and puts it up on YouTube, perhaps with a video backing, they may well be the person who gets into trouble."
But Wellington electoral law specialist Graeme Edgeler believed both the Electoral Finance Bill and the Broadcasting Act would prevent an overtly political song - such as Chris Knox's Labour Party anthem Way Better - being played on the radio.
"For really political songs there is already a complete ban in the Broadcasting Act, which is unchanged by the Electoral Finance Bill. TV and radio can broadcast the strains of 'We're better off with Labour' as a part of news or current affairs, but they couldn't at any time during the electoral cycle play it as part of some countdown or music show."
Underlining the confusion created by the new law, others believed asong could not be defined as anelection programme under the Broadcasting Act.
Paul Norris, head of the Broadcasting School at the Christchurch Institute of Technology, thought it was unlikely diligent broadcasters would be caught out by something which was clearly an election programme, but said the bill remained a potential incursion into the right of free speech.
Mr Farrar agreed that political advertising needed some regulation, but said internet advertising was different from mainstream advertising.
"People ask to receive emails, people decide to go to YouTube to look at videos. The whole [idea of ] trying to regulate content on the internet under an advertising model is quite flawed."
