NZ Illegal Downloading Crackdown Law In Effect

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."

Comments

Simple

[Sasayaki]

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.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

As a kiwi. .

[Master Moose]

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.

Re:Not all bad

[nospam007]

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

Some links to the actual bill

[matrixskp]

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!

My connection has improve dramatically

[bunbuntheminilop]

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?

Re:As culture dies in New Zealand

[miasmic]

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

Re:Illegal law in most countries

[YttriumOxide]

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...