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For more proof that the recording companies expect special dispensation when it comes to engaging in otherwise illegal acts check out New Zealand's copyright law and Sony's blatant flouting of them.

According to Section 37 of the NZ Copyright Act, the importation, sale, hire or in some cases mere possession of any device "specifically designed or adapted for making copies" of copyrighted works is a breach of Copyright Law.

However, in the advertising for their Mini Disk player, Sony claim purchasers can "quickly and easily connect Net MD directly to their PC in order to download music files from the Internet or their CD-Rom drive"

Now excuse me -- but since Section 30 of the NZ Copyright Act clearly states that "The copying of a [copyrighted] work is a restricted act in relation to every description of copyright work", then it is obvious that Sony are promoting a device that is designed to break the law.

However, do you think the local recording industry has lodged a complaint about Sony's law-breaking?

Hell no!

Could it be because the head of Sony Music NZ is also the guy the recording industry has given the task of heading up their anti-piracy campaign?

For more information on NZ copyright laws you can check out the article on Aardvark.

For more proof that the recording companies expect special dispensation when it comes to engaging in otherwise illegal acts check out New Zealand's copyright law and Sony's blatant flouting of them.

According to Section 37 of the NZ Copyright Act, the importation, sale, hire or in some cases mere possession of any device "specifically designed or adapted for making copies" of copyrighted works is a breach of Copyright Law.

However, in the advertising for their Mini Disk player, Sony claim purchasers can "quickly and easily connect Net MD directly to their PC in order to download music files from the Internet or their CD-Rom drive"

Now excuse me -- but since Section 30 of the NZ Copyright Act clearly states that "The copying of a [copyrighted] work is a restricted act in relation to every description of copyright work", then it is obvious that Sony are promoting a device that is designed to break the law.

However, do you think the local recording industry has lodged a complaint about Sony's law-breaking?

Hell no!

Could it be because the head of Sony Music NZ is also the guy the recording industry has given the task of heading up their anti-piracy campaign?

For more information on NZ copyright laws you can check out the article on Aardvark.

I know I feel pretty commodified by the Ken doll.

The "indians" of north america felt the same when bundled up, have money thrown at them and in general forgottern by the invaders from Europe(Funny, I had relatives on the Mayflower). Owww.. what? Did I say invader? Yeah invader, I mean it. Look up invasion in a dictionary, sounds a bit like colonisation doesn't it? That's how we feel sometimes.

Your identity is not compromised when someone makes a doll that looks like you.

That's not the Maori take on things. Those tats on their face are almost like rank marks. A person does not dress up like a police officer and walk down the street, that's most likely to be illegal where you live (It sure is here). Why? If everyone did it, we wouldn't know a real cop from a fake one. They are marks ARE our culture. The stories are our culture. It's seeping away, and we want to protect it. Some children don't even know a few Maori myths or traditions and the language is faltering. Lego toys arn't the way to educate a child about culture. They are, however, excellent creative outlets, I have heaps of the stuff from when I was younger :-). I digress, the fact is we need to re-enforce our culture is it's original and un-fucked-up by crappy interpretations (Read: Western. See: Dances with Wolves (Utter crap), Braveheart (Yeah right) + any hollywood interpretation of an old story brought down to modern 30sec attention spans).

Surely Maoris have more important battles to fight than this one.

Yeah, ignorance. The word is "Maori", not "Maoris", there is no word "Maoris", the plural of "Maori" is "Maori".

How about seeking more representation in the NZ parliament?

Ignorance. The Maori are currently over represented in Parliament. The Maori are granted special dispensation. And the proportional voting system also helps. It is slightly un-democratic, but hey, looking after those at bottom of the pile has kinda been the way for a long time now. The Maori seats have existed since god knows when in the NZ parliament. BTW - Don't tell a Kiwi how to run a representational democracy, we have been doing it longer and in my opinion, better, than anybody else.

How about addressing questions of land confiscation?

Ignorance. We have been doing this better than anybody else for quite some time now, see the Waitangi Tribunal website

How about preserving Maori language and culture through sharing and outreach, rather than trying to establish a stamp of unenforceable "ownership" over whatever incredibly vague notion of "likeness" they're trying to tie this thing to?

I support the introduction of compulsory teaching of Te Reo (The Maori language) at school. I hope this becomes law, it probably will in the next few years. I welcome it because I never really had the opportunity to learn. I could learn it now that I am at university, but I'm up to my eyeballs in Biology.. You might want to see This document concerning how we feel about protecting our culture, in this case, a recommendation was made that Te Reo was made an official language of New Zealand. It has been an huge boost to the culture.

I know I feel pretty commodified by the Ken doll.

The "indians" of north america felt the same when bundled up, have money thrown at them and in general forgottern by the invaders from Europe(Funny, I had relatives on the Mayflower). Owww.. what? Did I say invader? Yeah invader, I mean it. Look up invasion in a dictionary, sounds a bit like colonisation doesn't it? That's how we feel sometimes.

Your identity is not compromised when someone makes a doll that looks like you.

That's not the Maori take on things. Those tats on their face are almost like rank marks. A person does not dress up like a police officer and walk down the street, that's most likely to be illegal where you live (It sure is here). Why? If everyone did it, we wouldn't know a real cop from a fake one. They are marks ARE our culture. The stories are our culture. It's seeping away, and we want to protect it. Some children don't even know a few Maori myths or traditions and the language is faltering. Lego toys arn't the way to educate a child about culture. They are, however, excellent creative outlets, I have heaps of the stuff from when I was younger :-). I digress, the fact is we need to re-enforce our culture is it's original and un-fucked-up by crappy interpretations (Read: Western. See: Dances with Wolves (Utter crap), Braveheart (Yeah right) + any hollywood interpretation of an old story brought down to modern 30sec attention spans).

Surely Maoris have more important battles to fight than this one.

Yeah, ignorance. The word is "Maori", not "Maoris", there is no word "Maoris", the plural of "Maori" is "Maori".

How about seeking more representation in the NZ parliament?

Ignorance. The Maori are currently over represented in Parliament. The Maori are granted special dispensation. And the proportional voting system also helps. It is slightly un-democratic, but hey, looking after those at bottom of the pile has kinda been the way for a long time now. The Maori seats have existed since god knows when in the NZ parliament. BTW - Don't tell a Kiwi how to run a representational democracy, we have been doing it longer and in my opinion, better, than anybody else.

How about addressing questions of land confiscation?

Ignorance. We have been doing this better than anybody else for quite some time now, see the Waitangi Tribunal website

How about preserving Maori language and culture through sharing and outreach, rather than trying to establish a stamp of unenforceable "ownership" over whatever incredibly vague notion of "likeness" they're trying to tie this thing to?

I support the introduction of compulsory teaching of Te Reo (The Maori language) at school. I hope this becomes law, it probably will in the next few years. I welcome it because I never really had the opportunity to learn. I could learn it now that I am at university, but I'm up to my eyeballs in Biology.. You might want to see This document concerning how we feel about protecting our culture, in this case, a recommendation was made that Te Reo was made an official language of New Zealand. It has been an huge boost to the culture.

First, I'd better apologise, I'm feeling I'm a little pedantic here.

Is it also a case of the penalties having been written into law x+50 years ago before the inflation of the present day took hold?

Like everyone else and as said above, I've heard of time and time again of companies flouting the law because the fine was peanuts. I hate using examples from my area, but case in point would have been garden centres and the NZ Holidays Act 1991. NZD$1,000 for opening on Easter Sunday was worth it for almost the whole bunch. (Part of the reasoning was before the passing of the 1991 amendments they were allowed to open, but Department of Labour inspectors still showed up.)

(Postscript: the lucky people got away with it this year - the garden centres sponsored a one-off (IIRC) amendment to legally open this year.)

is when a device similar to this is used by govt to do say a time-and-motion study for the government statistics department.

In New Zealand we have the Statistics Act 1975 which places a legal requirement on any citizen to answer questions that the statistician requires. Whilst this law is here for a good reason, and the statistics can be used for good purpose, like anything there is the potential for abuse. Think of being legally required to wear a modified device such as this in 10 years time, and through GPS and emitters in buildings (since GPS doesn't work too well indoors) - 'This building is ANZ bank, 123 Main St, Christchurch, New Zealand' would be able to do a comprehensive time-and-motion study on citizens.

Would that much detail be useful to politicians? Is there potential for the system to be abused? And naturally there would be big fines for screwing up data collection or destoying the collecting device.

Just a few thoughts... RedIguana

The Full Report is online at the NZ Privacy Commissioner's Page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report sets out the results of the Privacy Commissioner's examination of proposed amendments to the Crimes Act 1961. Supplementary Order Paper 85 makes two principal amendments to the Crimes Act which the Commissioner supports:

* broadening "crimes against personal privacy" by including the interception of non-oral private communications within the prohibition against intercepting private communications;
* creating a new offence of accessing a computer system without authorisation.

The expansion of laws against unauthorised interception of private communications to encompass communications such as faxes is an overdue and welcome reform. Similarly the criminalising of hacking into computers is beneficial to privacy. However, the bill does not simply criminalise such actions. It also provides exemptions and authorisations for state intrusions of the same type. This represents a significant risk to privacy and the Commissioner's recommendations seek to limit state intrusion and promote appropriate control and accountability when such intrusions are warranted.

Principal recommendations include:

* ensuring that new exemptions to the interception law cannot be made by delegated legislation;
* subjecting Internet service providers and telecommunications network operators to criminal sanctions if they retain, use or disclose private communications obtained during maintenance work;
* delaying exemptions from the new laws for the Government Communication Security Bureau until it is placed on a statutory footing and is subject to an interception warrant process;
* opposing the pernicious practice of police hacking into computer databases;
* calling for full and meaningful public reporting of any state practices involving intercepting non-oral communications and accessing computer systems.

There is also more information generally on NZ privacy up in the EPIC/PI Privacy and Human Rights 2000 Report.

-Dave

Try reading the Constitution Act rather than believing your own hype. Constitu tio n Act 1986

American ./ readers may be interested in this site:

http://www.knowledge-basket.co.n z/privacy/top.html