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P2P Traffic Drops 10% After New NZ Law
harryjohnston writes "Following the introduction of New Zealand's new copyright legislation, which we discussed last week, major ISP Orcon reports that international peer-to-peer traffic has dropped 10%. This might mean that the law is actually working to some extent, though experts say the effect will probably only be temporary."
So 5% got a seedbox in Tonga after all, now the traffic will just be FTP instead of P2P.
The other 5% switched to Rapidshare and Co.
if its just 10% drop at the advent of the law, it means it outright failed.
moreover, they just made piracy 'cooler' and more worthy of doing for a lot of rebel types and kids.
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p2p traffic down 10%. vpn traffic up 10% :D
Interestingly the law has yet to be used (or at least no news sites have reported it).
The 25 dollar charge couple with low chance of actually getting any money back have made the law seem pretty useless. I would think the fines would be around the minimum of 300 or so there is little chance of making a profit or even getting your money back.
The problem with putting the burden of proof on the accused is that judges will find it hard to award large damages (500+) since the account holder could not lock down his network and does not have the skill or money to prove it did not happen. Getting someone’s net cut off so they can't buy music legally is not the best business model either. If they have to get a friend to do it, there will be high chance of copywrite infringement immediately afterwards.
First reports of "the law working", then a few months later everything was back to normal again.
What they fail to recognise, is that NZ is an isolated far away nation who are often a test bed for new things. Internet banking for instance, years and years ahead of the rest of the world because it was simple to do. Having weak politicians who can be used to purchase laws by foreign companies is another. As a by product of the fact that you DSL line has 'national' and 'international' traffic rates - NZ netizens are actually a bit more organised that many countries. For years and years, there have been NZ only direct connect hubs - long before torrenting - where friends and groups share very efficiently and easily, and more importantly on their own 'darker' yet very trusted networks. The government have bitten themselves rather hard with this one, as all this law will do is make it even more difficult than ever to police. this 'drop' in 'known torrent traffic' is hardly going to stop anything. All it proves, is that private communications can't be trusted to be handled by the government or any other commercial entity and that it is up to the individual to ensure their privacy themselves. But what about the 'think of the children' bandwagon i hear you ask? Well if the Queens own household can have their own image database being passed around and Her son is mates with a known dodgy flying with 'unnamed girls' documented as passengers landing on UK military bases - I really don't see how technology is going to stop it. Not until you do what used to be done when they are simply taken out to pasture, never to return to society.
In Sweden after IPRED it was 30%, after half a year they were essentially back on the same curve as before. Everybody fears a token crackdown, like people speed everywhere but right after they've reduced speed on some road it's very wise to stick to the limit a while because it's always followed up by a bunch of controls on that road. It won't last since everybody knows they don't have the resources to go after everyone, it's just temporary.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's the _total_ international internet traffic which is down 10%. Given that P2P forms 30-50% of an ISPs traffic (supposedly), that means that there has been a 20-33% drop in P2P traffic. So, while it sounds small, it is actually a large difference to P2P, all without a single $25 letter being sent out.
Are there p2p software that can prioritise domestic traffic over international traffic?
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
...when they implemented the IPRED EU directive which gives the copyright lobby the right to force ISPs to give them the names of suspected filesharers, the traffic dropped by almost 30% on the day the law came into effect. However, it started increasing again almost immediately and a year later it's higher than ever before, and still increasing - just like it has been since the late 90s.
I find the wording puzzling, since everything we download is, well, copyrighted. So the "illegal downloading of" is dependent on there being "illegal distribution" of copyrighted material by a non-copyright-holder, in which case, shouldn't the distributors be punished *first*?
And what about all the free legal distribution of copyrighted content by copyright holders, which in turn can easily be saved as mp3s? It is saying if someone downloads something via P2P they are criminal, but if they save a youtube stream to a file, they are model citizens.
I have not noticed any difference in total international traffic at the ISP which I run between now and before the new law came into force. I do notice more VPN and seedbox traffic on residential connections and less UDP torrent traffic.
I am also yet to see a copyright infringement notice properly formatted with the requirements of the new legislation. I have bot even received an automated form letter from a rights owner, as used to be the case on a regular basis.
No rightsowner, or agent thereof has been in contact, nor RIANZ or NZFACT to discuss the relationship between the rightsowners and the designated IPAPs.