Slashdot Mirror
NZ File-Sharers, Remixers Guilty Upon Accusation
An anonymous reader writes "Next month, New Zealand is scheduled to implement Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act. The controversial act provides 'Guilt Upon Accusation,' which means that if a file-sharer is simply accused of copyright infringement he/she will be punished with summary Internet disconnection. Unlike most laws, this one has no appeal process and no punishment for false accusation, because they were removed after public consultation. The ISPs are up in arms and now artists are taking a stand for fair copyright."
Sign the petition against it!
*snip*
Internet service provider liability
92A Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.
*/snip*
Interpret it as you will, I personally don't see it as a "I'm an idiot MPAA lawyer and I say that whoever was on 123.231.6.250 at 1850hrs NZDT downloaded the latest Britney music video on the youtoobsmachine so therefore he/she/it is guilty!!! Jail for a trillion years!"* like the FUD being bandied about. It's flawed and retarded, sure, but it's not a sign of the apocalypse. Maybe some of the wannabe-faux-lawyers here can decipher it otherwise?
As I read it, the idiots at *AA still have to complain with a cease and desist orgy, the ISP's will just be legally bound to give multiple warnings before disconnecting a user.
As it currently is in NZ, a few ISP's will send you a warning and you simply respond with "NZ is none of their business or juristiction, tell them to bugger off and read the Berne Convention" and said ISP's will tend to leave it at that. Other ISP's shrug and say "not our responsibility Mr RIAA-tard, so kindly go and stab yourself in the face with a cricket bat." This change seeks to sort this situation out to make things clearer for all parties involved, it's just a shame that it seemingly puts too much power on the side of the accuser. Still, not as much power as the uninformed blogots seem to think.
My personal feeling is that there is a disconnect between the *AA, their friends and the consumers. They want to keep throwing physical media at us. What did the SACD vs DVDA battle show us (and DCC vs MD before that)? People were satisfied with mp3's or CD's. "Good enough" is exactly that, especially when "good enough" goes hand in hand with "easy". HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray was the same deal: Plain ol DVD is good enough for most people. Once they bump up to a 50"+ screen, then sure, the resolution vs viewing distance is required. Apart from that, the only interest I had in either format was as a mass storage media. And I still don't want to sit through 10 minutes of "Downloading is stealing" BS when I just want to watch the damn movie that I paid for.
The *AA crowd missed the boat on capitalising on the internet as a delivery platform, and because of their litigious nonsense, we're probably 5-10 years behind where we should be. Assuming an appropriate platform would have driven a higher rate of broadband expansion than we've had. Spotify without the stupid country requirements might be a good start.
* Jail for a trillion years in NZ is like three months real jail time