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NZ Illegal Downloading Crackdown Law In Effect

Posted by samzenpus on from the heat-is-on dept.

First time accepted submitter sfranklin writes "As of Sept 1 at midnight, 'anyone caught downloading copyrighted content illegally could face fines of up to $15,000 and have their internet cut off' in New Zealand. You don't even have to do the deed yourself. The 'account holder needs to know what's going on even if they themselves don't do anything online ...' Scary stuff, although I wonder how much actual enforcement is likely to happen."

38 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Not all bad by atomicbutterfly · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I were a Kiwi (slang for New Zealander in case you didn't know), this law would give me an additional impetus to begin searching for free/open-source/creative commons software and media for all my computing and entertainment needs. Sure, I'd buy stuff occasionally as well, but if I had to buy every single thing I was using which was pirated I'd be broke and seriously in debt. Much better to hunt out legally free software and media.

    Having said that, I'm an Aussie (the bigger brother of the Kiwis) and it's a hobby for me to do this anyway even though we don't have such a draconian law. I suppose some others in NZ might find ways to get around it, but I don't see the point of risking it myself.

    1. Re:Not all bad by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'd invest a couple of bucks a month to rent a seedbox in Burkina Faso or Tonga.

    2. Re:Not all bad by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 2

      The parent has a point.

      If measures like this are really successful, they will reveal that the alleged losses that software makers suffer from due to piracy are completely imaginary. Nobody except well-running, larger companies can or will afford to buy the tons of commercial software available and certainly no school kid can afford to buy 10 games at 60 $ every month. The industry's expectations are ridiculous.

      To give an example, when I used to be a very poor student that could barely afford to pay his electricity bill, I pirated all games, because there was simply no way I could have afforded them. Now I get a decent salary as a researcher and -- surprise! -- buy all games. (And no longer have the time to play them...)

      So yes, one way to deal with it is to switch to open and free software for everything you do (and ignore commercial games, how mouth-watering they might look...most of them suck anyway) But there also needs to be a big initiative to get rid of all proprietary file formats or even just minor incompatibilities that force you to use proprietary software. That needs to be prohibited. For example, journal publishers must be prohibited by law to only accept Microsoft Word format.

    3. Re:Not all bad by dbIII · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The NSW police in Australia are being taken to court this month for pirating a few thousand copies of some terminal emulation software that really should have been replaced a decade and a half ago and is licenced at an insane price per seat for what is effectively abandonware. So there you go, even the police force does it.

    4. Re:Not all bad by Internetuser1248 · · Score: 2

      You wouldn't have to stop pirating. The law only covers peer to peer and torrent protocols, so as I recommended to my sister who lives in NZ, you just need to rely on streaming, file hosting sites and the sneakernet. The sneakernet is where most of her piracy happens anyway.

    5. Re:Not all bad by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Informative

      Said so from the land of 3 strikes-your-out.. seriously besides France, I thought Australia was the worst place to be if you're a pirate

      Don't believe anything AFACT tells you. There are no baseball inspired laws in Oz against downloading, rumours of such were just another AFACT wet dream. The MO of these parasites is simple and obvious, make exaggerated claims in country A about what is done to "battle piracy" in country B, if country A is dumb/corrupt enough to actually implement it in law, reverse A with B and repeat.

      Also it is not a crime to download copyrighted material in Oz since everything on the internet is copyright by default, sure AFACT can try and sue you in civil court for damages but it's never been done because the only damage they can claim is the real cost of the material, as such most cases would not even make the $50 minimum damages bar to get the case heard in the small claims court. If AFACT conducted themselves like their brethren do in the US (pay $X,000 or we will sue), I'm pretty sure they would be investigated by the authorities for racketeering and/or extortion (admittedly I may be giving them too much credit).

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    6. Re:Not all bad by GigaplexNZ · · Score: 2

      Anyone know how easy it is in NZ to get a different ISP?

      Very easy.

      What's the ISP market like?

      Fairly competitive but still overpriced for the small data allowances you get. There's essentially one big backbone ISP (Telecom) and most of the smaller ISPs wholesale connections from them, and regulations prohibit Telecom from blocking competition.

    7. Re:Not all bad by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I thought America was all free-market and capitalism? It sounds more like communism with your lack of choice.

      You're kidding, right? You must be new here or something. This subject comes up pretty regularly on Slashdot, with lots of other Americans saying the exact same things as me. I'm a little surprised given your relatively low UID.

      No, America is NOT free-market and capitalism. We love oligopolies and monopolies here. In fact, we think that any government action to limit monopolies is bad, because it's "punishing success", and that monopolies should be allowed to do anything they want to their customers or potential competitors. We even think that corporations are people; there's a good chance our next President will be a man who said those very words. Don't forget, we also believe in allowing unlimited abuse of the patent system, so that big corporations can use vague patents on obvious "inventions" to shut out competition from smaller rivals.

      However, we don't believe in communism. Communism (in practice) is where the government controls everything, and owns all the corporations. What we believe in here in America is an elite group of people running the corporations, and the government only serving to protect their interests. That's frequently called "fascism".

    8. Re:Not all bad by hercubus · · Score: 2

      i agree with the spirit of what you're saying, what we have, loosely, is fascism

      however, Romney does not have a good chance, his chances approach zero. if the economy is rebounding around election time, it'll be Obama. if we're in the middle of the double-dip of recession, it'll be President Rick Perry

      unless one happens to be LGBT, or a billionaire, life will get worse at approximately the same rate under either option. not sure if it has any legs, but Perry has been blathering about the "injustice" that half of Americans pay no income tax (due to the fact that their income falls below some minimum, roughly 12K i believe). gotta frakking love that

      you see, the problem with poor people is they have it too easy. i see all that blubber walking around and i'm thinking "cheap alternative fuels" on the hoof. our soylent crackers may not come from poor people but soon our electricity will. yee hah!

      --
      -- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.
    9. Re:Not all bad by plover · · Score: 2

      Why would the source code to a medical device matter to you? First, there isn't a thing you could change about it. If you changed it, as a different patient I wouldn't want to trust your changes. If I were your doctor, I don't know your qualifications so I wouldn't trust your changes, and so I wouldn't prescribe the use of the changed software. All software and changes to the devices have to be tested and certified.

      The only thing you might think you could do would be to make a choice of "certified machine A" or "certified machine B" or "no treatment." But even that's a false choice. Medical devices undergo a testing regimen based on how they're configured and used. Machine A when used in manner A is supposed to perform in method A every time. Machine B when used in manner B is supposed to perform in method B every time, but this is not exactly the same as method A. The doctor would make his choice based on his training and experience, and select the best one for the job (best according to his criteria, not yours!) As your patient, your doctor may decide your illness would be best treated using method A. Open source or not, the trained professional has decided it's the best methodology for the job.

      And there's a lot more to a machine than the software. Other key differences would include the manufacture. Would you ask for blueprints of every part of that machine? Would you demand to see the tolerances for the hinge pin? Would you need to see the testing report for the hinge pin that shows it was manufactured to within all specified tolerances? If you're not going to dig that deep, why not? It's because at some point you trust that parts of this machine were designed and made to a certain level of quality. What makes the software any more or less deserving of your trust?

      Now, all other things being equal, you might ask your doctor "hey, I want you to use machine B, it's open source" and he might agree. However, that means absolutely ALL other things have to be equal, and they never are. He may have experience with machine B's hinge pins jamming. He may have always had great results with machine A. Or he may simply have no experience with machine B, and very limited time to learn it. Would you be comfortable being his first test subject? And would you pay him extra for the time he needs to spend learning to use machine B?

      You're weighing "device invention and development" and "millions of dollars worth of testing" and "years of doctor experience" against "the patient who has more at stake than the doctor, but whose qualifications are completely unknown, looked at the source code." As an independent third party, I'd choose the machine meeting first set of qualifications over the second set every single time.

      As a patient you may or may not be a crackpot, but look at the average person the doctor has to treat. He's got people coming to him saying "I read in a magazine in the airplane that you should use avocado pits to treat my lymphoma" or "wave magnets over my wrist, I read it on the wiki-peter!" That doctor has essentially no way to trust that you're not giving him equally stupid advice.

      A completely different question, and probably more valid, is "Should the software source be opened up to a panel of trusted professional third party software engineers for review?" To that I'd say absolutely. And for all I know, that might already be part of the certification process.

      --
      John
  2. Simple by Sasayaki · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It'll be enforced almost never, except against people who earn a personal grudge from someone in authority. Turn down that creepy ex-politician for a date? Get a knock on the door from the state sponsored copyright cops. Film a cop beating up a homeless guy and post the video on YouTube? Your NAS gets seized by her majesty's finest.

    It's like criminalizing swearing. Since everyone except extreme outliers is guilty of the crime at some point or another, it's not possible to enforce it properly so the law becomes just something else to throw at people who piss off people with power.

    --
    Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
    1. Re:Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It doesn't work like that at all.

      The copyright owners must contact the ISP with proof of an offence (an IP address from a torrent would be enough), then the ISP passes on the warning.
      If you get three notices, then you have to go to court and defend yourself by proving that you didn't download the material.

      That is a terrible link in the summary, more detail about the law can be found here.

  3. As a kiwi. . by Master+Moose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think that anyone actually wants us to use the internet.

    We have always been penalised because of and by it. Expensive and slow by international standards. . . and now this finally passes (it has been on the books for some time)

    I would write more, but I am likely to go over my data cap any minute.

    --
    . . .gone when the morning comes
    1. Re:As a kiwi. . by miasmic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah I'm already over my data cap, I've been waiting a week before I can start watching Youtube videos and download again, only a couple more days to go.

      It really is appalling and a backwards attitude is seen from both Telecom providers and the government here. It results in usage of search engines, smart phone apps etc that's years behind countries like the US and UK, even taking into account population differences. I'm totally disappointed to hear that this passed. The country I feel in many areas takes too much notice of what is going on in the US in legislation and corporate policy and not enough of what is going on in Norway, Sweden and Findland, for example, which have more in common with NZ in many significant ways than the US does.

      From a previous /. article about undersea cables, NZ is currently poorly serviced, but a more direct, much larger link is going in directly towards the US in a couple of years (as I remember from the map) which should hopefully improve things, with NZ having better connectivity than Australia in that direction rather than the other way round. But it's still little excuse for the current setup of things.

    2. Re:As a kiwi. . by Master+Moose · · Score: 2

      Odd - especially given its name and all.

      --
      . . .gone when the morning comes
    3. Re:As a kiwi. . by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      I don't think that anyone actually wants us to use the internet.

      Of course they don't! They HATE the public Internet that we've been using for the past few decades.

      They want you to move over to their nice new PRIVATE Akamai-run Internet where there's a meter on everything.

      That regular people ever got access to the Internet was a surprise to most companies. Look at the way the telecoms are scrambling to take ownership of the Internet.

      The only reason we ever had a public Internet is that it was developed by the government who let universities in, and then an Open standard (html) got popular. Hell, it wasn't even like broadcast television where the government leases bandwidth to private corporations. If you can get on the Internet, you can use the Internet and corporations just hate that.

      If the corporations had been the ones starting the Internet, it would have been cable TV. Do you remember early AOL before you could use it to get to the Web?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:As a kiwi. . by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Do you remember early AOL before you could use it to get to the Web?

      Forget AOL; do you remember CompuServe (or Compu$erve as many called it) before AOL, with their crazy numeric usernames and ridiculous and expensive per-hour charges? I seem to remember charges like $4-8/hour, and this was back in the 1980s when salaries were a fraction of what they are now. Plus there were additional charges for other activities on there.

  4. As culture dies in New Zealand by kawabago · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This should snuff out the last vestiges of culture in New Zealand. The RIAA's own recent study found downloaders are their best customers. If this law is effective in stopping downloaders, the New Zealand music industry should collapse completely. That will be funny!

    1. Re:As culture dies in New Zealand by miasmic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      NZ is the only English speaking country I've been to where the music scene isn't dominated by US or UK bands/artists. Local bands regularly make up a fair portion of the charts.

      NZ's trademark sound is a Maori influenced 'pacific' flavour of reggae/dub (check out Fat Freddy's Drop), but drum & bass (and d&b influenced stuff like dubstep) is also much more popular in the mainstream than elsewhere. There's also quite a few decent homegrown alternative/rock groups, some of which have achieved international success. I have listed some of the most popular NZ originated bands/artists in the last 10 years.

      Roots/Dub/Reggae

      Fat Freddy's Drop
      Katchafire
      Salmonella Dub
      The Black Seeds
      Trinity Roots
      International Observer

      Rock/Punk/Metal etc

      Stereogram
      The Mint Chicks
      Evermore
      Minuit
      The Datsuns
      Head Like a Hole
      Fur Patrol
      8 Foot Sativa
      Dawn of Azazel

      Drum & Bass

      Concord Dawn
      The Upbeats
      Shapeshifter

  5. Chronicles of Ridiculous by digitaltraveller · · Score: 3, Interesting

    1. All Content is Copyright by default.
    2. How do you distinguish the legal from the illegal content?

    1. Re:Chronicles of Ridiculous by russ1337 · · Score: 2

      1. All Content is Copyright by default.
      2. How do you distinguish the legal from the illegal content?

      Exactly. In other countries they refer to the 'sharing' as the illegal part. Here in NZ it appears to be the 'downloading'. Does that mean if I watch 'RayWilliamJohnson' on youtube he can have my internet cut off?

      How am I to know whether the person who posted the video has the rights to post it, or not?

      If they're talking about 'sharing' then it's certainly not very clear in their education campaign.

    2. Re:Chronicles of Ridiculous by blahplusplus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Copyright is the new enclosure of the commons. The digital commons is being enclosed by corporate/government powers because it is a threat to the status quo.

  6. Some links to the actual bill by matrixskp · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.copyright.com.au/Latest_News/New_Zealand_passes_Copyright_Amendment_Bill.aspx http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2011/0011/latest/viewpdf.aspx New Zealanders protested quite loudly against this bill - with the internet blackout campaign - http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html - , unfortunately it was still passed. More proof that politicians are mostly a bunch of money grubbing ass bandits that will do what ever big business wants them to for a little time at the swill trough!

  7. My connection has improve dramatically by bunbuntheminilop · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't been able to hit 5Mbps for 3-4 years (it's not much, but I'm in rural New Zealand), and I've never been able to stream video in high quality, but tonight I'm totally able to. My ping is only 25ms, and I never thought it would be possible to have a ping so low. Now I can play games online!

    I was against it, but, maybe it's not such a bad thing? What do you guys think?

  8. Re:So by Kylon99 · · Score: 2

    I'd like to say yes, but as we all know, the people with lots of money and connection... it's legal. The people without money or connections... it's illegal. That's probably how it'll play out.

    Sigh.

  9. Re:If this were the US by Air-conditioned+cowh · · Score: 2

    Any law that comes with an assurance that it "usually" won't be fully enforced does not belong in a civilised society. Again this is the same as with drug laws where, in the UK, you might be let off with a caution for possession but the law says you can be thrown in jail for up to seven years (for class-A substances such as MDMA).

  10. Re:Illegal law in most countries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Except that it's practically impossible for someone to be driving your car without you knowing about it.

    Unless they were driving it illegally, in which case you'd have a total defense.

    Does an equivalent defense exist for internet usage? If so, then there's a simple solution:

    Every day or so, submit a filing to the NZ Police, to the affect of:
    "I have reason to believe, having just reviewed my logs, that at some point on [day], a person or persons without authorization to access my WiFi probably downloaded copyrighted material. Should you wish to investigate further, these logs will be kept available for an officer to collect in person, until my next review in about 24 hours' time."

    Insist upon a report number every time (hint: they won't give you one. They'll give you an "information number" instead, which means "any person quoting this number is wasting our time").

    Then, you'll always have a complete defense!

    CAPTCHA: idealism

  11. Re:Here's a thought by EnergyScholar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey, have other slashdotters noticed the increasing number of astroturf posters in the past year or two? I presume everyone reading this knows that one can hire consulting firms that maintain stables of fake online identities to 'contribute' to the 'discussion' on all sorts of threaded discussions. I think five years ago they were few enough to barely notice. In the past year I've spotted several probable astroturf trolls attempting to sway discussions. The **IA agents are especially obvious.

  12. Re:Illegal law in most countries by Chatterton · · Score: 2

    "Be very careful about how you secure your broadband. You are accountable for it."

    I have an apparatus from my broadband provider letting me open a wifi network. The thing is SO broken that when I activate WEP or WPA i can't connect to it anymore. I have to have some kind of 'false' security by opening my wifi by mac addresses. I have NO way of securing my wifi network as it should be. I am not ignorant, I just can't secure my wifi network.

    No, tell me what i should do if this kind of stupid law come into the country i live in?

  13. stupid attorny generals by cheekyboy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why do people in real high power approve such shit laws?

    Sure if we all received a nice 350k salary we would never ever pirate anything.

    And stop using the term pirate, we arent raping people on boats.

    Its civil copywrite violations.

    Oh and btw every cop in NZ uses bit torrent to download movies for their kids, they sure dont get paid enough to buy games/movies.

    I wanna see politians on 55k salary.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  14. Some good links by Mistakill · · Score: 3, Interesting

    here is some good reading by a leading NZ IP lawyer, on the new law...

    http://lawgeeknz.posterous.com/copyright-cheapskates
     
      and http://lawgeeknz.posterous.com/nzs-copyright-proposal-guilty-until-you-prove

  15. Its only for torrents!! by nzac · · Score: 3, Informative

    The law only applies for using p2p at the the application layer. I would think about 3 out of our 120 politicians have a basic understanding of torrents/internet.

    There are so may obvious ways around this but they either cost or are less convenient. http://bayfiles.com/ is just in time.

    It also makes it so you are very unlikely (a little less than before) to be prosecuted under our general copy-write law. I would say the stupidity of discrimination against protocols makes will make piracy easier.

  16. Re:Illegal law in most countries by YttriumOxide · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While nice in theory, it has a downside... I'm originally from NZ but haven't lived there in a long time. When I did though, I was once talking to a guy on IRC who was pretty seriously talking about doing some rather nasty things involving explosives and a jet liner... While I couldn't be certain if he was serious or not, I decided to do the right thing and let the police know about it.

    What happened for doing my civic duty? Well, the police turn up at my house with a search warrant citing "attempted murder and breach of the telecommunications act" (interesting combo, but yes, that's what it said) and took all my computers away to "investigate". Several months later, I finally got them back, with the HDD wiped on a couple and the power switch physically broken on one.

    I made a complaint to the police complaints authority, but was essentially ignored the whole time.

    Only minor plus was I got in the Southland Times (newspaper) and it raised a fair bit of attention with the general public (enough that people recognised me on the street for a few months)

    Back on the topic at hand: If you did do something like you suggest, I'd expect similar treatment would ensue...

    --
    My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
    Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
  17. Re:Here's a thought by KDR_11k · · Score: 2

    You can set AC scores or even hide AC posts entirely in your preferences.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  18. Re:Illegal law in most countries by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

    modern *intelligent* man does not call the police.

    they are not your friends, they are DANGEROUS and they can 'backfire' on you, as you found out.

    I will deal with the crime before I call the cops. calling the cops is the last thing you want to do, these days. just not smart anymore.

    sad but a truism of today's world. does not matter which country, either; they ALL will turn against their citizens if the wind blows that way, that day.

    once a cop comes out to make a visit, they HATE returning with 'nothing'. this is yet another reason to never call the cops. they just want to haul SOMEONE away. and that was you, as you found out.

    let this be a lesson to us all.

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  19. This will end well by udoschuermann · · Score: 2

    Next up: Bot nets start downloading illegal content. Hilarity ensues.

    --
    --Udo.
  20. Communism by Artemis3 · · Score: 2

    Actually, true communism has no separate government; everyone is part of it. A modern communist society would have a direct democracy system where everyone is consulted of everything, not a dear leader or a selected party/assembly taking decisions for you and me (much less oligopolies, lobbiers etc). In the past such a system (direct democracy) would had proven unfeasible, but IT today can actually make it happen.

    The only problem is the rich would oppose it. Because richness needs poverty to exist. Unless this battle is waged by the majority poor against the minority rich, it will never occur. Which why the theory of a violent revolution as a means of change holds.

    Of course there are many theories about how to make a transition into it, some claiming a middle stage (socialism) needed, others saying this middle stage would actually make it impossible since it would make a State too powerful against the people to ever relinquish power (here is where Socialists/Anarchists clash).

    In the mean time the rich remain rich, while striving to become even richer and more powerful and the poor become poorer and more oppressed to prevent the necessary revolt that could put and end to it.

    --
    Artix
    Your Linux, your init.
    1. Re:Communism by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Actually, true communism has no separate government; everyone is part of it. A modern communist society would have...

      That's why I added the words "in practice", because invariably someone pops up and says "that's not true communism!" Everything you say here is really just the No True Scotsman argument. In REAL communist societies, especially the former USSR, what I said is true. You can talk all you want about imaginary societies, and give them whatever name you want, but it's really irrelevant, and it's like me saying my shirt is red when everyone else says it's blue.

      The only problem is the rich would oppose it. Because richness needs poverty to exist.

      No, actually, for non-poverty to exist, the system you advocate can't be adopted. There simply aren't enough resources on this planet for everyone to live like Westerners do. The only way a highly-equal society can exist is if it's relatively small, and only the people inside that country are equals, but different from everyone else in the world around them. There are some countries where there really aren't any poor people, and the standards of living are very high: places like Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. But you don't see the people there sharing their wealth with the world around them, but then they wouldn't have any.