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."

Comments

Incredible

[VagaStorm]

I can quite honestly say this is one of the most insane things I've red. Fortunatley for the population in nz, once evry one and their grandmas has lost internet connections, which should happen in about 3-5 weeks, they will have to see how stupid this is and redraw the law.

Also an economic rescue pacage for isps with no customers should be prepered now :p

The solution

[kimvette]

I am repeating this ad nauseum but it's really the best, most effective solution.

1. Stop buying new music
2. Stop going to shows of new acts
3. Don't "pirate"[sic] music, just KILL the demand. P2P only lends credence, however tenuous, that they are "losing" money due to "theft"[sic].
4. Don't listen to top 40 radio
5. Did I mention stop uploading/downloading music on P2P networks? Boycott the big labels.

Bankrupt the RIAA(or whatever it's called in your respective country) members. Then, sanity will be restored to copyright.

Oh, in case you think your favorite label is an indie, remember this family tree - it's a little out of date but you'll see that a lot of "indie" labels you like, aren't! Check it out:

http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/whoownswho2.html

Re:The solution

[Cor-cor]

6. And get everyone you know to play along.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, but I'm really hard pressed to believe that the readership of Slashdot is what's driving the demand for the Big 4.

Re:The solution

[QuantumG]

I've heard this nonsense a few times. Haven't you heard? They're already going out of business and it has nothing to do with P2P file sharing. The "problem" is simply that musicians don't need them anymore. Was a time when they controlled the distribution and the means of production. Now they control neither. Any idiot with a Mac and a copy of Garage Band can cut an album now. More people buy from iTunes than buy CDs. So where are the labels going to make their money? Promotion? Ha! There's marketing companies out there that are a hundred times better and, importantly, cheaper.

The music industry is beat.. but they have a war chest and they intend to spend every dime before they give up and go home.

Re:The solution

[Slisochies]

Then this decrease in demand will be blamed upon priacy, probably resulting in a blanket tax on internet connections, or blank media to make up for lost revenues.

Re:The solution

[SanityInAnarchy]

1. Stop buying new music

RIAA: "Hey, our sales are down! It must be piracy!"

2. Stop going to shows of new acts

For the record, this is one place that isn't affected by piracy. If I were a legitimate artist wanting to stay out of the whole debate, I'd give away MP3s, sell physical copies for those who want them, and make the real money from touring.

3. Don't "pirate"[sic] music, just KILL the demand. P2P only lends credence, however tenuous, that they are "losing" money due to "theft"[sic].

This solves nothing. They obviously have no need for real proof, anyway, or why would they have sued dead people, and people who have never used computers? Filesharing could stop, overnight, and they wouldn't notice.

Because it was never about piracy. Piracy is just a nice scapegoat that they use as an excuse to do whatever they want. Right now, that's laws (which give them the right to hit up random people for cash), more DRM (to make it that much more difficult for third parties to compete, while opening the door for selling the same crap to you many more times), and whatever else they feel like doing.

As long as piracy exists, life is good -- they can do pretty much whatever they want, and get away with it.

So, if piracy no longer existed, they would need to create it. I have little doubt that employees of major record labels would be distributing their own files, just so they could pretend that it's still a threat.

4. Don't listen to top 40 radio

Then the question becomes, what should you listen to? Where should you get your music from, if you're to stop buying new music?

All you're doing is sending them a message that you personally no longer care about music, or movies -- and, very likely, they will assume you're a pirate. What you should be doing is sending them a message that also tells them how you want it to look. Show them demand, but on your terms.

Re:The solution

[daBass]

Any idiot with a Mac and a copy of Garage Band can cut an album now.

Just like any idiot with a toolbox can make you a sofa and everyone with a camera can shoot a wedding - but that doesn't mean its going to be any good.

Personally, I like companies investing in artists, allowing them to not have to have a day job and focus on writing and recording an album. Working with people - producers, engineers, session musicians - that really know their craft and inspire the artist to do their best work. A nice studio environment with top equipment and great acoustics doesn't hurt either.

Not everything that the major labels put out is 13-a-dozen Top 40 R&B crap, there are some really talented people in the system. Yes, some of the established ones could finance their own recordings, but there are some wonderful debut albums by people who can't. Not to mention those that need a couple of albums to hone their craft before finally breaking and recouping costs. If they financed it from their own savings, that first flop would have been all they ever put out.

No, you don't always need them, but if we lose the investment major labels make, the music world will be lesser for it.

Re:The solution

[hasdikarlsam]

Know their craft, do they?

Due to the loudness war, I've been basically unable to listen to anything released over the last fifteen-twenty years. Fortunately we have a large cache of older records.

If the labels died, there'd be an increase in dud records, but right now almost *all* of them are duds to me. There'd also be an increase in records I can actually listen to.

Re:The solution

[arkhan_jg]

Businesses other than the big 4 are capable of loaning money to a startup small business, which is effectively what a self-producing artist is. There are also smaller truly indie labels that perform the same function.

Artists see such tiny percentages of the gross from a big 4 album, they can even end up owing the label money.

The main reason to go with a big label is the marketing effects from the big 4 being embedded so deep in other media channels such as TV and radio, thus giving you exposure that it's very hard to get even now on an indie. This is changing though, and were the big 4 to go away, it would open up the door to lots of artists having moderate success, instead of a tiny handful getting mega success and everybody else going nowhere.

Nothing the big 4 does now can't be replicated by a host of other smaller, more artist and listener focused businesses, instead of the profit-at-any-cost current ones that try to control the market and the artists rather than supply what they want and need. For example, people wanted easy to download non-DRM music on-demand. It's taken 15 YEARS for the music industry to finally deliver. I remember my mate introducing me to MP3/BIT files downloaded off the internet in 1994. Here we are in 2009, and amazon has finally just launched its non-DRM MP3 download service in the UK, with major label backing. Speedy response to the market there guys.

Re:Incompetence By Design

[Nutria]

How is it that the other Anglo-Saxon countries are all WORSE than the US when it comes to digital rights and freedoms?

And lots of other Big Brother and Nanny State idiocy, all from countries that think they are superior to the US.

Summary internet disconnection?

[geekgirlandrea]

So if you commit a burglary at night and use a flashlight, are you banned for life from ever using electricity? If you get caught dealing drugs and taking orders by cell phone, are you banned from ever having a telephone again?

Cutting someone off from access to communications technology for an indefinite term in modern society is a *very* harsh punishment. It's like these things all get written by some geriatric lawyer who's thinking "Those damn whippersnappers aren't doing anything important on that intarthingy anyway".

"With but a prick I damn him"

[seeker_1us]

This law was written for the *AA and their international ilk.

They can shut down independent musicians simply by saying so (like Shakespeare said "With but a prick, I damn him"). Furthermore, they can shut down anyone who legally downloads any independent work through Bittorrent (it's filesharing) just by claiming it violates their copyright.

None of these laws were ever about protecting artists. They are all about giving the established monopolies a method of protecting their predatory business practices.

Re:The solution is easy

[Joce640k]

Presumably they'll only let "qualified" people make accusations, ie. they'll ignore the likes of you and me.

Re:flippant American answer

[dbIII]

Come on, you guys are so jealous of our hereditary monarch that you gave Bush more power than any King since John.

Re:flippant American answer

[chris_mahan]

Because people in the US have guns and use them. There's a long history of US politicians having been killed/shot at by US citizens.

(Lincoln, a couple of Kennedys, Reagan come to mind)

And they can't get the laws changed because, well, people have guns.

I personally think that's a good thing (The gun ownership part, not the (shooting at|killing) politicians part).

Re:The solution is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly as Holloway described

as ISPs transmit data across their own network (for their users) they're open to copyright infringement claims themselves unless they comply with [section 92]. ISPs are therefore put into the role of policing copyright infringement accusations without judicial oversight against their customers, all while risking their business if they get it wrong. It's in this impossible situation and this poorly thought out law that bypasses the courts that ISPs are saying they will be forced to disconnect customers. When you bypass the courts and due process in favour of a free market of risk-averse ISPs the true nature of [section 92] becomes clear.

Rather than justice and due process this is a free market of ISPs deciding whose lawyers will cause them more problems. Governments won't be disconnected, nor will important people, but the public now have no protection. Disgusting!

Re:flippant American answer

[HungryHobo]

and the sad thing is you really believe this.

If what you said held any weight then bush would have been gunned down years ago.
But he wasn't. despite the vast numbers of people who hated him.
Not one of them got a shot off.

You know how much difference it makes that you have guns? Sweet Fuck All.
Your senator isn't scared by your penis extension. He has a security team who can use theirs much better than you can.

Put Internet Rights into the Constitution

[wikinerd]

The citizens of NZ should ask for a constitutional amendment to include internet rights as a basic human right, just as Greece did in its 2001 constitution:

1. All persons have the right to information [...] 2. All persons have the right to participate in the Information Society. Facilitation of access to electronically transmitted information, as well as of the production, exchange and diffusion thereof, constitutes an obligation of the State [...]

Of course even if something is codified into the constitution it could be limited by law (as it does in the case above if you read the PDF) or not implemented at all, but it is in general a good idea even just for the sake of the symbolism itself to have internet rights codified into the constitution.

Re:Incompetence By Design

[Insanity Defense]

How is it that the other Anglo-Saxon countries are all WORSE than the US when it comes to digital rights and freedoms?

Canada isn't worse than the U.S. on this matter. Not even as bad yet as we have so far managed to fight off attempts by the U.S. to pressure our government into making a Canadian form of the DMCA

Re:flippant American answer

[Attila Dimedici]

The people who thought that Bush should be shot were overwhelmingly the same people who think that guns are inherently evil.

Re:Incompetence By Design

[Shakrai]

That recordable media levy is the main reason that Canada doesn't have a DMCA. And the price is virtually non-existent.

That still doesn't justify it any better to my way of thinking. I have to help fund RIAA if I want to burn a copy of memtest86 or my favorite Linux distro? What's wrong with that picture?

Re:The solution is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. We have an alternative system called voting. I recommend that you use it.

That's swell, if you want to wait until the next election to (hopefully) resolve the problem. Until then, what? Should the Kiwis just grab their ankles and smile?

No, you generate a lot of media fury. Do this by spoofing the IP's of newspapers, public officials, celebrities, etc. Get them kicked off the internet. If enough people get pissed, the politicians will know they won't get re-elected unless they fix it NOW.

You don't have to wait until the next election to bring pressure on politicians.

Re:The solution is easy

[HeronBlademaster]

If the law wasn't a publicized issue during the election, then there wasn't any attention to be paid. From what I can tell, most of the candidates in question don't even know about it, and most (all?) of their parties don't have a stance on this act.

At what point were the people not paying attention? Perhaps they could have made a fuss about it when it became a problem - OH WAIT! That's what's happening right now.