Slashdot Mirror
New Zealand's Recording Industry CEO Tries to Defend New Draconian Law
An anonymous reader writes "Campbell Smith, CEO of the RIAA equivalent in New Zealand, has written an opinion piece for one of New Zealand's largest daily papers, in which he tries to justify the new 'presumed guilty' copyright law. This law allows recording industry members to watch file-sharing activity and notify ISPs of users who are downloading material. The copyright holder can then demand that an ISP disconnect that user — without the user ever having a chance to demonstrate their evidence."
I presume politicians are corrupt until proven honest.
Apparently the law also specifies you have the right to confess your guilt, and pay your fine with a smile, also.
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
1) Officially copyright your own material
...
2) Contact ISP's of all lawmakers and Judges you can find
3) Get their internet cut off
4) Watch the media and political storm
???
Profit?
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
One wonder what precautions there are in the law against abuse?
I mean, If I complain that I saw Mr. Smith sharing stuff copyrighted by me, what would be the consequences?
So far, it's been delayed from Feb 29 to March 29. (approx) due to the overwhelming controversy surrouding the legislation. It is blatantly clear that the politicians that pushed this bill were simply cracking under pressure from lobby groups; our parliament is a joke, albeit not a very funny one. If it isn't stopped or postponed further then I submit that I won't be posting for a while after some time around March 29 :)
Take heed, our small Aotearoa is owned by globalists; they may well seek to implement such policies elsewhere. (see the Opal file and judge for yourselves)
Peace, from a New Zealander
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
I don't think New Zealand is on the same internet I am.
I, OTOH, am able to do simple math. Multiply the $0.99 price that's typically charged per on-line song by the 15 tracks one finds in a typical CD and you get the same $15 one pays for the CD. Add the hassle of burning and dealing with DRM.
If people don't want to buy CDs at $15, then why do they think people would be willing to pay the equivalent of $15 for a CD online?
Charge reasonable prices and the world will beat a path to your door.
The copyright lords don't need to get a court involved to impose sanction. Their firm allegation is all that is needed under this system. The commoner is punished, and then must go to a court to prove that the nobility were mistaken.
People who like quick solutions and big government involvement don't like the rule of law and due process because they get in the way of accomplishing the "greater good." Ironically, the greater good is generally a myth, and if you look behind one group asking another to sacrifice its rights for the "greater good," you'll usually just find some selfish, self-centered individual who profits.
The data-transfer capabilities of the Internet weaken the foundation of the artificial scarcity upon which we have built our cartel. Without the ability to forcefully stop people from sharing their resources directly with one another, we will not be able to stand as a distributive barrier between those who have talent and those who want to enjoy that talent, which in turn means we will no longer be able to create and artificially inflate revenue streams from other people's creative efforts.
In order to ensure our continued relevance in the face of technological advances which displace us, and to ensure our continued ability to extract large sums of money without contributing anything of value (or even doing anything hard), we need laws that prevent people from capitalizing on their own resources.
Any technology which threatens our gravy train must be made illegal, and those who use it must be punished.
"without the user ever having a chance to demonstrate their evidence" - Shouldn't the first step be the music industry showing THEIR evidence? Only once they've shown significant evidence should the user have to step up and provide their own counter evidence or attack the industry's evidence.
The ISP would then contact its user and warn them that they were breaking the law, advise them not to do it again
I agree with the proposition that users should be able to flag to an independent adjudicator anything they regard as mistaken evidence
also, he mentions that it is the 'right holder' that identifies IP addresses through the filesharing system, not the governement or anything so I'm not sure how its "Big Brother".
Having said that, I don't think its the appropriate way to handle copyright infringement.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The ISP would then contact its user and warn them that they were breaking the law, advise them not to do it again and provide details of where to enjoy music legally online.
If the user kept breaking the law the ISP could close the internet account.
Extra emphasis on "could"
So is Campbell Smith saying that there is nothing requiring ISPs to cut off internet users?
If not, why would ISPs ever do so?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
So, third parties can initiate my uplink's termination? smells like a denial of service attack :)
I wonder if that's legal...
r.
What if someone is downloading an electronic copy of songs on a CD they own.
What if someone is sharing a song with a friend; "Try out this song, if you like it go buy the album".
The proposed law seems to assume someone is guilty in both these cases, which is BS IMHO.
a large country like the usa, or a confident one like the uk, the business infrastructure of distribution can wither and die in the face of the internet, and there's no perception of a threat to the very existence of british or american culture being wiped out in the adjustment period
but places like canada, or new zealand, there is a strong legal entrenchment of cultural protectionism, because there is already a perception that everyone watches american television and movies, or listens to british music, such that if "native" culture were to lose its protection, it would wither and die
i actually don't believe this, i hardly believe anything stops an artist from creating art. its not like a kiwi won't write songs again just because kelly clarkson is on the radio. it seems to me to be some sort of lack of confidence on the part of canucks and kiwis. or rather, enough canuck and kiwi politicians can be persuaded of this scare tactic by captains of dying media industries in the face of the internet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the language in the article the implies that is...?
Mmm hmm. "users should be able to flag to an independent adjudicator anything they regard as mistaken evidence"
Of course, I'm making the mistake of Reading The Fine Article, and trying to make evidence-based comments, rather than commenting on what I imagine the law will be like. I'm clearly The Man's bitch.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Darknets are less efficent and harder to use than open file sharing systems, so most people won't use them and therefore it will be hard to find content if you do limit yourself to darknets.
Encrypted file sharing only means you have something to hide, making it that much harder for you to prove you're "innocent". On a lighter note, I'd love to see what happens if they try pulling the plug on a NSA/CIA/FBI operative... or whatever the New Zealand equivalent is.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
that says 'it is god given right of aristocrats to rule and peasants to obey'. sometimes elitist people need a hard, cold beating to get some sense beat into them. some kind of people try to suck your blood as long as you let them. this person is one of them. we should presume him guilty and execute his punishment.
Read radical news here
Could there be a more Kiwi sounding name than "Campbell Smith"?
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
They were tired of engineers having all the fun. The fact that there are no legal repercussions for false accusation is a giveaway.
Fun night in:
1. Get (student) friends together
2. Drink beer
3. Send accusation letters to ISPs accusing high-profile/celebrity New Zealanders of copyright infringement.
4. Drink more beer and wait for media frenzy
5. Drinksh more beers *hic*
6. Repeath!
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
...that you don't reveal that information. The point of the effort would be to point out how ridiculously easy it would be to abuse the system. Just recently, the FBI was criticised for creating 'honeypots' of illegal pornography. What's to say that the RIANZ won't implement a similar tactic? We already know what lengths these companies will go to in order to make an example of a small few.
This is not the driving force for extremist copyright in Canada. The Conservatives, our current governing party, is not friendly to the arts, but they are happy to go along with American demands. Many Canadian industry and arts organizations (and many, many Canadians) are opposed to the changes, but it is largely American officials and organizations representing American interests who pay the lobbyists and get the face time with our politicians.
Now in Quebec it is true that culture is of central political importance. The large arts organizations there are in favor of extreme copyright laws. Quebec's approach to copyright is much closer to the moral imperative of authorial control in France, les droits d'auteur, than to the pragmatism of Anglo-American copyright. And I believe there is a tradition in Quebec (as in France) of seeing large organizations as important forces for the preservation of society. Those traditions are likely to support copyright extremism regardless of what tools are at their disposal - though preservation of French culture is always one of those.
I shouldn't open up a can of worms, but don't mock what you call "cultural protectionism". The United States followed a similar course in its early days (hence American spelling and the lack of respect for foreign copyrights). Though it has largely failed in Canada, and though it is used to justify ridiculous proposals (e.g. Canadian content quotas for web sites), the concern that originally drove it are legitimate. Canadian culture *has*, to a large extent, failed to thrive in the face of American imports. Americans own our movie distribution network, sell TV series cheaper than we can produce them but won't themselves buy material set in Canada, and so on. Americans tend to see this in terms of free markets for a cultural product. Many countries and peoples see culture as a matter of national identity. Canadians have long supported a greater role for government in the production of culture and information. The lack of confidence you describe does exist among some in Canada, but before you jump on "small countries" as being special in this regard, take a look at the culture wars in the United states (over prayer in schools, flag burning, prudishness about depictions of sex but not violence, and so on).
Also, the "small country" stereotype doesn't work. Before you slot France in with Canada, keep in mind that it has a larger population than the U.K. (I believe surveys have found Brits suffer from lower national confindence). The U.S. has five times the population of the U.K. Canada has a tenth the population of the U.S., and about ten times the population of N.Z. English speaking countries have fewer barriers to influence by American culture, and Canada is right next door.
The copyright war is not driven by small countries or cultural inferiority complexes. It is conducted mainly by the United States (with collaboration with allies, including Canada) at the behest of a handful of huge transnational companies like Disney, General Electric, Viacom, Fox, Time-Warner, Sony, Microsoft, a few others. Almost no countries are sufficiently powerful or independent to put up effective resistance.
Dude, you broke his seriousright:
as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
No more mango juice for you; it's off to jail, you backwards Kcing!
(Great catch though!)
Those of us who do not live in New Zealand can easily (or relatively) file motions to have lawyers, judges, politicians families etc, cut off due to our claims that they have downloaded copyrighted material.
Since we don't live in New Zealand, even 'if' we are incorrect and they didn't... they have no recourse. However, the families of New Zealand politicians et al are just as 'guilty' as the next person-- we all know that, just as their kids do.
The only question will be how to find their IP addresses... but it will be a hop, skip, and a jump before NOBODY in NZ has internet... how do you think the internet providers (and the population) will feel about the law then?
I am open source, and Linux baby!
This is not an option - apparently only members of the RIANZ and affiliates can make the request. Indie artists are not protected by the new law.
The only control a creative artist has is over the initial release of new material. Once its out there, there isn't anything anyone can do to limit its distribution.
A successful business model works with the grain, as opposed to trying to impose artificial barriers.
If I want to see a live show, I buy a ticket to attend. I am basing fair value on the artist's past performances and accumulated goodwill. There is no guarantee any particular performance will live up to or stand above average. Based on demand, the artist scales up or down supply and cost per performance, accordingly. There is nothing I can do to create more instances of the live show to be distributed beyond the artist's control.
When it comes to pre-recorded material, the initial release of the material is the last and only control an artist has over the distribution of material
If I were a talented artist (I'm not), I would put all of my energies into building a demand, via live shows and maximum exposure and distribution of some initial recorded content (for free), in the interest of building demand.
Once I have established deman, I would solicit payment (in the form of online donations, perhaps) for subsequent releases only - a song at a time. When I've determined that I have received fair payment (entirely subjective, depending on demand, no different than live shows), I would release the material.
It takes a small leap of faith and customer goodwill earned in the short term, but it is a self-correcting revenue model. Whether I under or over-deliver, the incoming revenue would eventually correct itself to reflect what my target market considers fair value.
You can view it here.
Hopefully this will clear up some questions and suppositions about what is actually changing.
- Kiwi
No, sir. It's totally objective to put "Draconian Law" in the headline. There's no way it's an attempt to direct the discussion. Not one bit.
i can tick off significant kiwi influences on my life off the top of my head
but the closest i've ever come to new zealand is mindanao, philippines
and i think your keas are adorable, your wetas not so much
you shouldn't belittle kiwi culture, its a bigger deal than you think
just stop diddling the sheep, will ya? ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There was a slashdot style Q&A with Mr Smi on a New Zealand IT forum:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=95&topicid=30765
I have a lot of records & CDs. I *could* convert my collection to MP3s, but I am lazy. I sometimes download someone else's copy.
I *have* the physical media; have I committed a crime?
Has the person who made it available for download committed a crime?
Are they given the chance to prove they also own the physical media?
If they don't, then the possession of the MP3 *may* be illegal, but is the transfer of a copy to me illegal?
Am I not legally entitled to own a digital copy of the music I bought on physical media?
Do I have to make it myself in order for it to be legal?
Can I legally make my copy available to others who have asserted they own the physical media also?
Internet connectivity is approaching "utility" status with many people. It's how I work, how I do my banking, and how I make & receive phone calls. Should mere accusations of alleged illegal activities be permitted to shut me off?
Quote by John Key, Prime-Minister of NZ:
"If New Zealand was to sign a free-trade agreement with America for instance, we would need an equivalent of Section 92A,".
Thanks America!
On the bright side, America is instituting protectionist policies due to its financial difficulties.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
I agree. Though I am quite disturbed when people diss the Quebecois (or, for that matter, the French). I sometimes suspect that after Britain conquered New France, it was the anglophones who assimilated to the French culture. I can't quite put my finger on it. When I travelled in Europe and ran into Quebecois, I found there was a certain common cultural understanding or attitude that made them fundamentally more like me than the Americans I encountered (who were mostly very nice folks from a variety of places).
There are many things I admire about Quebec (and some I don't). Their political influence has led to some quite bad decisions, but they have also saved us from time to time. A minor example is unpasteurized soft cheeses, whose import the government had planned to ban for unsubstantiated health reasons. Another example is their liberal attitudes towards sex. I recall a survey finding that most Quebecois would rather their teenaged kids had sex at home, instead of taking a hardline approach that would result in it happening elsewhere. I am also tremendously impressed that almost all their top TV shows are made in Quebec. I doubt many countries with five times their population can say that.
There has been a huge cultural shift. My father once told me that he was taught in school (where he pledged allegiance to the flag and the Empire for which it stood - meaning the Union Jack) that Americans were emotionally flighty and unstable. This explained their intemperate rebellion, while responsible dependable Canadians remained loyal - and in the case of some of my ancestors lost their land in New England. Not that my father believes that now or is anti-American by any stretch of the imagination. But how can I judge or reject the culture to which I have assimilated? The fact is, there was something (good or bad) that Canada was trying to protect.
There are reasons for maintaining an independent culture. Among them: It is an important bond in a country whose population is a thin line smeared along the U.S. border. The stories culture tells us hold us together - but stories from the U.S. (at least in film and TV) are always about somewhere else, as though where we are doesn't exist or is irrelevant. And we do have different political values (health care, a role for government (as in banking), etc.), which are reflected in and affected by the culture we experience. Because of TV, Canadians often confuse American laws and institutions with Canadian ones. For example, they think we have Fair Use of copyrighted works, that we elect a Prime Minister (we elect only a riding (district) representative), that we can sue for all sorts of things we can't, and so on.
file sharing will become encrypted? gg copyright laws?
how can this solve the problem, though?
you could just have an RIAA node out there on a tracker. whoever uploads encrypted data of a song to them gets their IP logged and nothing is changed.
that said, torrents are scary, i use encrypted usenet. its not infallible, but its a lot better.
He says that like it is a bad thing. We live in a world in which there is already more recorded music available than could be listened to in several lifetimes, with more being made every day. The costs of making it are continually dropping due to the abilities of PCs and home studios, and the cost of distribution is effectively zero thanks to the internet. The price should be dropping like a rock.
The cost of computing power has dropped immensely over the past couple of decades. It's not a tragedy that CPU producers can't make the same amount of money per unit of computing power as they did in 1988; in fact, it is an incredible boon to society.
Note: only makes sense if you have sigs enabled (and even then ... )
But prior to the invention of technology which allowed widespread distribution of music and dramatic performances, the best an artist could hope for would be a kingly sponsorship. A musician couldn't make a living without actually performing, nor could an actor make a living without constantly acting.
There's nothing today preventing artists from making their money the old fashioned way. They could simply tour to bring in revenue, if they so chose. But they want to continue to make money on performances long after they've put their instruments away. And this is what the likes of RIAA-member companies promise them. Are they getting exploited? Perhaps in a few cases, yes. Are they exploiting the public at large? Yes, every time. The creative arts are the only discipline in which the workers and those who exploit them expect to make profit long after the work is done.
If you're not paying for live performances, you're contributing to this condition. Buying CDs, music/movie downloads (legal or not) - these all contribute to the notion that an artist deserves to be compensated multiple times for work they've done only once. But then again, when you buy that CD, you get to enjoy content indefinitely without paying the artist any further royalties.
If you don't like the copyright model, then do something about it. I suspect, however, that most people would rather put up with copyright than live in a society without it. Without copyright, every artist would simply resort to live performances, and we'd have a situation where hearing our favorite music was a matter of being in the right place at the right time and paying a hefty cover charge, *every time*.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Anyone have a link for a list of New Zealand musicians?
If such legislation passes, I will not be giving my money to any of these musicians, via any means that supports this sort of legislation.
I will however do business with them DIRECTLY, through band-run websites and such. I just don't want my money going to anyone that supports the limiting of Net Neutrality.
That being said, anyone have a link to a list of bands that direct market?
I'd like to compare the two lists, and shop accordingly.
you think the maritimes, great plains and vancouver will stay together?
break further up?
or merge with the great southern evil?
i always thought it would be neat to have one big country from guatemala to greenland
put the capital in detroit, for example, to mollify canadians
or, do you think the frogs are just always malcontents, and will never truly break up canada?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I would be saying something somewhat like this (only more formal/professional sounding)
I am writing to you to express my opposition to the new copyright bill. I do not support piracy or downloading illegal copies of content from the Internet. However, I do not believe that ISPs should be required to be copyright enforcement officers for the media companies, acting on vaguely worded notices of infringement. If the media companies believe that someone is infringing their copyright, they should be required to show proof of this infringement to both the ISP and the person accused of copyright violation.
If the law was changed to require the media companies to show proof (including details of when the violation took place and what items were illegally copied) and to produce a statement (from e.g. a lawyer or copyright officer authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder of the work in question) declaring under penalty of perjury that they believe that infringement has taken place, I would support this law.
Of course, the real problem is that many p2p networks and programs like BitTorrent and emule and others makes it hard to gather proof of violation that a lawyer would be willing to agree to certify which is why the media companies are starting to abandon the practice of suing individuals for copyright infringement and instead looking to shut down pirates and pirate sites via ISPs.
Well, yeah. Anything they think law enforcement types "need" access to for good reasons are things criminals would love access to for their own. Make everything secure and suddenly we can't find terrorists. Loophole everything and suddenly you live in 29 other states and owe lots of money on custom made bowling balls for some reason.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
So does this guy representing the NZ RIAA do the work out of the NZ consulate in NYC, on the same floor as the "All Asian Massage?"
Also, aside from Bret and Jemaine, there's just Steve who should be worried about copyright infringement, since there's only 3 musicians from NZ. Although, it seems like Jemaine and Bret could use all the free publicity they can get.
You know, there is a way to address some of the culture concerns. I'm in the US, though I have traveled a lot of the world. I for one would /love/ to see local shows from all over the world accessible through the net. Want your culture to get support and be known? Open it up and show the world. It looks like NZ may be doing this by their local TV corps putting their shows on-line, I just hope they don't lock it to local viewers only. Canada offers many of it's local shows as well, but sadly locked them to prevent non Canadians from seeing them and learning your culture. The US is swamping the world with our culture because we are spewing it out at a level that makes it nearly impossible to avoid, despite the actions of the RIAA and MPAA. I think the entire world would benefit from all countries opening up their local entertainment for the world to see and share in the way that we used to do, rather then following the self isolating and self destructive examples we have been displaying of late. I love my country and I love my culture, and I am fully aware that both came into being only because of the people and culture that came from other countries. It's an interesting world, don't let corporate greed and fear get in the way of discovering it.
Question reality.
Sometimes a democracy seems like a bad relationship that you just can't shake...
To quote Churchill: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.". Until we come up with a better idea - or at least an idea which is different enough to count as new - we are pretty much stuck with democracy as the best thing going.
As an attempt to assist New Zealand keep down it's crime rate, I believe we can propose a wonderful new law to assist them.
We shall simply set up a system where reporting a license plate number that has been shown to be on the street during a burglary will result in the car being seized by the government.
I don't for foresee any issue ever arising from such a plan.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
I'll print out your missive on small cards, laminate them, & give them to as many people as possible.
This is Truth, and it should be spread.
Thank you.
Really, it's just ignorance and a group of politicians on both sides who run a small country with limited resources and didn't appreciate until now that anyone but the entertainment industry seriously cared about an issue that the media doesn't traditionally make a lot of noise about because copyright is usually very boring. They've been caught by surprise, which is why there's suddenly so much open controversy in the media.
The New Zealand government has its problems as any government does, but it's naive to just assume that it's corrupt because it's a government and because the overtones on Slashdot tend to be that governments are corrupt. NZ politicians aren't perfect or inherently uncorrupt, and nor are public servents, but the country's much smaller, the election cycle is faster, there's only a single tier of representation, and the people in the government are much more directly accountable to the people who they govern. Mistakes get made but there are still checks and balances in place, of which the Official Information Act has had a huge impact, and for 3 years running Transparency International has rated NZ first equal in its corruption perceptions index. It's been in the top 3 for 9 of the 10 years that the index has been published (in 1998 NZ was ranked 4th).
Section 92A is very badly worded and badly thought out, and you could quite easily claim that Labour made some seriously bad mistakes in drafting it as they have with several other recent things, but I think it's a real stretch to claim that this is blatantly corrupt.
I couldn't agree more. If we care about our culture - or indeed any culture - then we need to create the conditions for it to thrive, not fence it in and manage it to death, continuing on a path that has already failed.
If I recall correctly, Canada is one of the world's top exporters of TV shows (who knew). We're strong in music, video games, and film production, with traditions in animation and documentary filmmaking also. Enacting made-in-Hollywood copyright laws will only continue to leave the greater part of our artists at the mercy of distribution channels that have locked us out for so long. So far, it seems many of the most powerful arts organizations (within and without government) just don't get it (though the documentarists and many musicians are more enlightened). Though at this point the government doesn't talk to them so much (if at all), preferring to trade horses with the U.S., which in turn represents their entertainment industry.
ISP XNet was already cutting people off last year in anticipation of this law. They sent one email to folk's ISP accounts (and who ever checks that) and then snip - the connection was down. The ISP's have to disconnect you as if they do not then they are opening themselves up to a lawsuit from RIAA/RIANZ et al. The copyright holders will demonstrate that they have provided "proof" (from US based companies trawling the p2p sites) and there has been no action, and they will probably win. So the easiest thing for the ISPs to do it just warn then disconnect. The proposed code of practice means the ISP has to give 3 warning over 3 months to their customers, and the customer can dispute them. But the ISPs will find this onerous, the chilling effect is frightening, and the kicker is that only the giants (RIAA etc.) are pre-authorized to send copyright notices to ISPs - the ISPs are not obliged to treat individual copyright holders with the same due process.