New Zealand Reintroduces 3 Strikes Law

An anonymous reader writes "The New Zealand government has reintroduced a newly rewritten addition to the Copyright Act which will allow rights' holders to send copyright notices to ISPs, and force them to pass them on to account holders. Section 92A of the Copyright Act will allow rights holders to take people who have been identified as infringers more than three times in front of a Copyright Tribunal. This law will allow the Copyright Tribunal to hand down either a $15,000 fine or six months internet disconnection. The law specifies that the account holder himself is responsible for what is downloaded via the account, and doesn't make allowances for identifying the actual copyright infringer if there are multiple computers tied to an account."

Comments

Re:Better than the UK

[holloway]

Hi folks, I'm a New Zealander who's been following this law as part of an organisation called the Creative Freedom Foundation (I don't know what I can do to prove my credentials to an international audience... er, lowish /. id#?) Anyway here's the gist of the new proposal,

• People are innocent until proven guilty either by the Copyright Tribunal or the courts.
• Termination can only be ordered by the courts, not the Copyright Tribunal
• No special sanctions on right holders for false or malicious allegations.
• Penalties of up to $15,000 may be awarded by the Copyright Tribunal. This is in keeping with the maximum of the Disputes Tribunal.
• The courts have existing maximum fines that are already established under the Copyright Act.
• New definition for ISP that is narrower and excludes organisations such as businesses and universities. Too early to tell what this means for shared connections such as internet cafes, open WiFi, etc.
• It says "right holders will pay a fee per notice" although as regulations not set might be premature to read too much into that. This is as opposed to a process that allowed many notices on a flat-rate for rights-holders.
• No resolution to the overlap with s92C disputes. As outlined in our submission s92C lacks a counternotice procedure and due process. Further due to technology changes there may be no functional difference between an s92C or s92A dispute.
• Privacy is maintained by anonymizing details until a verdict is reached by the tribunal.

It's not a conventional "3 strike" process which is based on Guilt Upon Accusation, this is a tribunal system (as you asked, an extension of the existing Copyright Tribunal) to deal with copyright infringement online. If you have any questions about this let me know. Cheers.