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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.
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
I'd say it's fairly accurate to call laws that find an individual guilty until proven innocent draconian. The whole idea of a legal and judicial process is that guilt is not established until the summary of the court (or tribunal) proceedings and all sides have been heard. Normally police (in criminal cases) or solicitors (in civil cases) need to establish evidence to prove this guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but this law allows 'rights owners' to merely suggest that someone has broken a law to have them denied of a service they have paid another company for.
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.
Further, our Prime Minister John Key called it "draconian" on the radio.
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