NZ MP Enjoys Copyright Infringement, Votes For 3 Strikes

An anonymous reader writes "As New Zealand politicians are looking to rush through a new copyright law, 92A, which imposes a 'three strikes' regime on people accused of file sharing, some New Zealanders were a bit amused to see Parliament Member Melissa Lee stand up to speak in favor of the bill just hours after tweeting how she was enjoying a compilation of music put together for her by a friend. Does that count as her first strike?"

Comments

National Party token Asian

[youngone]

Melissa Lee is just the National Party's token Asian, and after a by election shambles has probably risen about as far in the party as she is ever going to. She is not very smart, and every time she opens her mouth in public she proves it again. She is however quite nice looking, and probably brings a bunch of Asian votes.

Re:Not enough information.

[pushing-robot]

From TFA:

Ok. Shower... Reading ... And then bed! listening to a compilation a friend did for me of K Pop. Fab. Thanks Jay.

So unless "Jay" is a Korean pop star, I'd say no.

Re:Um, she says borrowing a CD/DVD is ok ...

[sapphire wyvern]

Loaning a CD or DVD to a friend is not a violation of copyright. Copyright is the monopoly right to make copies which is reserved to the copyright owner. A copyright owner doesn't have any inherent entitlement to control what happens to the copies that are sold, apart from activities that would infringe on the owner's copyrights (eg public performances & unlicensed copying). Re-sales and loans do not infringe provided that no copies are made.

That's why the software industry came up with the insidious concept of "licensing" rather than selling the copies of software that they distribute. That's why EULAs are, unfortunately, enforceable in many jursidictions - because the EULA states that something that looks like an outright purchase is actually just a one-sided bullshit licence contract.

EULAs don't apply to books, CDs, or DVDs.... yet. That's one more reason why streaming services represent a corrosion of consumer rights - they replace irrevocable sales of a physical object with revocable licence agreements for services that carry a huge number of additional obligations and restrictions on the licensee.

Re:Um, she says borrowing a CD/DVD is ok ...

[tomhudson]

If one person who legally posses a CD/DVD with copyrighted material loans it to another person that is quite different than some other person who makes an entire library of music available to everyone over an internet connection. The three strikes law seems to apply to file sharing sharing only, not copyright violation in general. Its not even certain there is a copyright violation in this case.

No, actually it's copyright infringement in both cases. They are exactly the same. The only difference is in the number of infringements.

Don;t be silly - if I lend someone a DVD, no illegal copy has been made. How is it copyright infringement? Next you'll claim that if I lend you a book or a newspaper, it's copyright infringement.

Again, copyright infringement involves violation of the limitations on the right to make a copy. No copy of the DVD made, no copyright infringement.

Re:Um, she says borrowing a CD/DVD is ok ...

[jrumney]

The difference here is that you don't need to be found guilty of murder, I can just accuse you of it. Three accusations and you're off to jail.

That was true of the bill that was originally tabled, and rejected. But in this hastily resurrected form, the accusations do have to be reviewed by a "Copyright Tribunal", allowing the accused to mount a defence against the presumption of guilt. And if the tribunal decides that terminating your internet access is a fitting punishment, they then have to put it before a court.

Re:yes

[pushing-robot]

As I understand it, copyright laws are only supposed to apply to the actual copying of data. Thus, if I copy a cassette tape, give it to you, and you play it, you aren't breaking the law unless you decide to copy the tape yourself.

File sharing is a bit of a different animal, legally speaking, since computers love to make copies. The content cartels have successfully argued that file sharing is illegal for both parties since uploaders are technically "copying" copyrighted data to send it over the Internet, and downloaders are "copying" that data to files on their computers.

Content corporations have even claimed that the transferring of information from a CD or hard drive into RAM is a prosecutable form of copying, in hopes of making the playing of pirated digital media a form of infringement. They've even famously tried to claim the ripping of legally purchased content to a computer or music player is infringement, but that's been rather successfully shot down. Naturally, that hasn't stopped them from trying to pull the same stunt for every new service that comes out—like Amazon's Cloud Player.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I'm not familiar with the laws in NZ but it's quite possible that Melissa Lee can't be charged with anything, if her friend simply gave her the collection on CD, and she hasn't ripped the songs to her computer or otherwise copied the data. She's throwing her friend under the bus, of course, but that's hardly new for politicians.