Three-Strikes Copyright Law In NZ Halves Infringement

Bismillah writes "The 'Skynet' copyright act has been in effect for six months in New Zealand and rights holders reckon it halved the number of infringements in the first month. Even so, they're not happy and say over forty per cent of Kiwis continue to infringe online. The fix? Rightsholders want the current NZ$25 infringement notice processing fee payable to ISPs to be dropped to just a few dollars or even pennies, so that they can send out thousands of notices a month. ISPs want the fee to increase four times instead, to cover their costs. Unfortunately, the submissions for the review of the infringement notice fees are kept secret by the government."

Comments

Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

As I New Zealander I speak for everyone when I say:

Hah!

Re:Yeah na bro

[Mathinker]

As a critical thinker, I speak for everyone when I say:

"Never believe effectiveness reports made by industry groups who lobbied for the change in question, without actually reviewing the report methodology (which, BTW, is hardly ever disclosed in these so-called "reports")."

Re:Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

So infringement dropped. But did purchases of music and movies increase? That seems like a much more better question to ask.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Black Parrot]

As a critical thinker, I speak for everyone when I say:

"Never believe effectiveness reports made by industry groups who lobbied for the change in question, without actually reviewing the report methodology (which, BTW, is hardly ever disclosed in these so-called "reports")."

Also, even if the drop is real it will almost certainly fade away with time.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd also check USB Hard drive sales - given the mini price war here since the law came into effect....

Re:Yeah na bro

[Runaway1956]

The fix? TFS suggests that there is a fix. I say there is no fix. When blind fools abdicate their rights, there is no fix. For generations to come, in NZ, Australia, the UK, the US, Canada, and other nations that sign our ridiculous fucking treaties, people are going to be oppressed by the likes of RIAA.

Screw that. No "rights holder" holds any rights that take priority over our right to download information, or to entertain ourselves with a bunch of binary digits.

We've all got our heads up our asses, or those "rights holders" couldn't have bought up all the politicians who have made these laws possible.

Re:Yeah na bro

[A nonymous Coward]

Just like the US's alcohol prohibition if the 1920s, or ongoing War Against (Some) Drugs, it's much more likely they've just driven it underground and increased people's appetite for the forbidden fruit. You could say this behavior is as old as Adam and Eve ...

Re:Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

That question is completely irrelevant.

Free file sharing reduces the value of the intellectual property. If such property is going to be seen as a viable investment vehicle, it must be able to retain its value over time. An increase in short-term sales is not *nearly* as valuable as a reduction in free data duplication, as you get much more money long-term, and can optionally sell the IP itself (not the copies) at a much higher fair market value, if the IP holds its value over time.

They need the commodity to be artificially scarce *much* more than they need a quick boost in sales.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

it's much more likely they've just driven it underground and increased people's appetite for the forbidden fruit.

Actually, alcohol-related hospitalisation and deaths declined markedly during the Prohibition.

Re:Yeah na bro

[A nonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Regardless of whether that is true or not, crime increased and drinking didn't go away.

Re:Yeah na bro

[stenWolf]

Wrong domain.
Actually, mob related crimes have soared during and since the prohibition, which is the real"alcohol-related" deaths...

Re:Yeah na bro

[Forty Two Tenfold]

the value of the intellectual property

You see, capitalism taught you all to confuse value with monetary "value", i.e. price. Sharing reduces neither [real] value nor potential income, while it improves cultural awareness of the society.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Evtim]

Did sales go up? If not, perhaps the claim that copying is lost sales is...hm dubious? /sarcasm

You know what, I wish I had a magic wand. Then I'd stop all copying and have the dream of the Mafia fulfilled. Let's see how they like it..I predict they would die quick and miserable death while the art and innovation will, of course, survive.

And since I am at it I'd also stop people from smoking, drinking, drugs and I'd make sex not pleasurable (but keep the impulse to have kids so we can survive). Thus fulfilling "the dream" of our hugely hypocritical society and its so-called leaders. Let's see what happens on the next day. I predict WW III, shortly after the complete economic meltdown and the revolution...

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

The value of a copyright is in it's ability to make somebody money. If copying is reduced, but the reduction in copying doesn't mean there is more money made for the rightsholders via copyright, then it is not a profitable move for copyright holders, let alone society in general (whose sake is the only reason a legal monopoly like copyright is possibly justified). If you wanted to effectively reduce 'free data duplication', you could take a baseball bat to every computer, VCR, printing press, or anything else that allows for cheap and easy copying, but that would be a step back in profitability, not to mention clearly a bad social policy. Greater scarcity does not inherently equal greater profits, and conglomerates of rightsholders have shown themselves again and again to not know what's actually in their best interest, fighting things that would lead to greater profits. It's important to keep in mind that copyright doesn't actually function like property does, which is part of why using the term 'intellectual property' is so often idiotic, and there was absolutely no point in using that term here.

Re:Yeah na bro

[HungryHobo]

That plan would probably turn out a little like this.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1366

Re:Yeah na bro

[Edzilla2000]

While bullets related hospitalization and deaths augmented markedly...

Re:Yeah na bro

[hairyfeet]

Especially when there is a simple fix and its called fix your broken ass business models you douchebags which Valve has proved can work quite well.

I'll be honest...I used to pirate the hell out of games, so did all my friends, now I can't even remember the last game I downloaded and I've even bought a good chunk of those games i pirated back in the day, why? Because Valve fixed the broken ass business model that was PC gaming, that's why.

Now if I can't get it on steam I simply won't buy it, nor will i buy those games that require a constant net connection even if they are on Steam. with Steam i get ALL the updates automatically, all my friends and family are on there so all i have to do is look in my friends list and say "Hey you wanna play some?" and BOOM, right into the game, easy chat, constant sales and most having included DLC, when new DLC comes out you can get it cheap, etc.

So if the damned studios would give me something just as easy, where I can buy in a USEFUL format, instead of some bug ridden DRMed to the 50th power crap, like say .AVI or .MKV to where I can just drop them on my netbook or my dad's media tank and just hit the play button? I'd be happy to buy their product. Instead i simply don't buy nor do I download, if I can't watch it online for free i just don't watch.

All these media companies are doing is speeding up the progress of P2P, that's all. By gouging for every last nickel they possibly can and screwing over viewers with region coded bullshit all they are doing with draconian crap like this is making sure P2P will end up with full crypto and obfuscation so nobody will be able to tell what anyone else is getting. How much you wanna bet their sales figures didn't go up for shit despite the drop in downloaders? I bet many just said to hell with their product altogether, it isn't like we don't have a wealth of entertainment online for free now anyway.

I would like to apologize to all the people of NZ as sadly we here in the USA lost any form of control over the cartels years ago so I'm afraid we can't do shit to stop them from fucking you over, sorry. Some tried writing a petition to the POTUS and all they got for their trouble was a flowery "Fuck you peasant LOL!" form letter and both parties are totally owned so we're screwed too, sorry.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, that's deep bro. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I feel my life has more value now and my cultural awareness of society has totally improved.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Forty Two Tenfold]

my cultural awareness of society

Idiot.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

I find it sad that people in this argument are demonizing the copyright holders for wanting to protect their rightful discretion over who is allowed copies of their works (or works delegated to their stewardship). We should be angry about how they're going about protecting their rights, or angry about how stewards are constantly conning content creators ("artists" or whatnot); but instead people rather take the mentality to be angry at rich people for not giving them money. They have things you want, they have an abundance of said things, and you think you should take those things because it purportedly won't inconvenience anyone? Aside from destroying their ability to reap any sort of profit from their efforts anymore, of course, whence everyone starts taking it all without paying.

I suppose next you'll stop complaining about murderers and instead start complaining about guns, knives, rope, bare hands, and basic human emotions like anger that we need to collect up and chemically suppress by tainting the water supply.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Runaway1956]

Let's be careful here - I specifically aimed my guns at "rights holders". Ridiculous term, if you ask me. A term that should enrage any and all. I also stated that said "rights holders" have no rights that take precedence over my rights, or yours. Yet, they are singled out as having some special "rights", not granted to a mere commoner.

Now - who ARE these "rights holders"? It gets to be more and more rare that this fictional "rights holder" is an actual artist of any sort. The MPA holds "rights" to almost everything that comes out of Hollywood and it's associated industries. RIAA represents a group of "rights holders" that, like the MPAA, puts the perpetual shaft to actual artists. Book publishers, software publishers, you name it - the "rights holders" are almost always a group which holds monopolistic or near-monopolistic strangleholds on the means of production.

These "rights holders" have no concept of "fair use", or "public domain". They work hard to quash any time limits on copyright, continually moving expiration dates further and further into the future.

The terms "authors", "artists", "songwriters", "scriptwriters", and more, have little in common with the term "rights holders" today. Occasionally, the person is the same in both cases. Only occasionally.

The battle is not between some rich people, and the common man. The battle is between corporate greed, and common sense, ages old agreements between the intelligentsia and the commoners.

The AUTHOR should hold a monopolistic right to his work for a decade or two. An ARTIST should enjoy the same right - whether that artist produces music, paintings, or whatever. CORPORATIONS, on the other hand, should enjoy only whatever rights that artist grants the corporation, FOR THE SAME PERIOD OF TIME!

Works produced by men and women who died decades ago are still held by "rights holders", who will never permit those works to enter the public domain. If those "rights holders" can't profit from the works, then the works will simply die off, and be forgotten.

A person or organization that will threaten to file suit if little children sing a "Happy Birthday" song ranks with the lowest of the lowest scum you might find in a hardened prison population. Such people are unfit to participate in society.

Re:Yeah na bro

[Grumbleduke]

I find it sad that people in this argument are demonizing the copyright holders for wanting to protect their rightful discretion over who is allowed copies of their works (or works delegated to their stewardship).

And would it also have been sad for demonising slave owners for wanting to protect their rightful discretion over what their slaves can do?

You have to be careful with legal rights; just because they exist, doesn't mean they are actually "right" or just. In the case of copyright what once started out as a 14-year right to stop publishers and booksellers from screwing authors has morphed into an almost unending set of restrictions that, if fully enforced, would grind much of our society to a halt (particularly online). Given that, I think it is perfectly valid to criticise and demonise copyright owners for wanting to enforce arguably unfair and oppressive rights. If we don't, how will we be able to change those rights into something more appropriate?

Re:Yeah na bro

[Anonymous Coward]

With this type of legislation, it goes one of two ways:

1) Infringing goes down - "See, our legislation worked! If it can be this effective so quickly, we obviously need more of it and even stricter, to even further reduce infringing!"

OR

2) Infringing remains static or even increases - "See, our legislation wasn't strict enough! We obviously need more of it and even stricter to begin to make a dent in infringing!"

Regardless of the results, the forgone conclusion will always be more and stricter legislation.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

I find it sad that people in this argument are demonizing the copyright holders for wanting to protect their rightful discretion over who is allowed copies of their works (or works delegated to their stewardship)

Perhaps they don't agree that said discretion is rightful. Legal monopolies were once commonplace, but now, with modern economics, the only place they make sense is in areas that are by their nature opposed to normal competition, like the infrastructure of utilities. However, the intangible is on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, being a resource most efficiently distributed without controls.

Furthermore, even if you naively think that an economic tool that was designed for censorship and then slightly tweaked in hopes of furthering public learning, the current set of laws is clearly not aimed at that noble goal. For many Americans, the public domain has not only failed to expand, but has actually SHRUNK in their lifetimes. There isn't even an illusion of social benefit in this scenario, and debates seem to rarely consider what is in the public interest other than as a tangential bonus.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

Well, slaves are alive. MP3 files are not alive. Therefor your argument is a bad analogy and invalid.

Copyright should be short-term; however the argument made implied that copyright is entirely silly. Many people claim that copying anything they can get their hands on without the direct inconvenience of another is their "right" and anything that impedes that is "imposing on their rights." These people make me think of Zynga: they see someone else do X, they think it's well and good for them to quickly do X as well but be louder about it, such that first person who had the brilliant idea to do X can't gain a commercial foothold and thus makes no return on all the investment they put in. The difference is these people aren't making a profit on somebody else's R&D (as Zynga does), but rather are arguing that the entire market motivation to trade for the results of that R&D should be nullified for their convenience. In other words: they advocate that anything that can be physically obtained without cost to an end party shouldn't require payment to that end party, even if its existence is a result of a lot of work by that end party.

In that case, why would Brandon Sanderson write? His whole career is writing. That's what he does with his life. These people advocate that because someone could scan and OCR (or just crack copy protection on ebooks) and then send the file around without Sanderson paying extra, thus it should be legal for them to do so: Sanderson has no right to payment for his efforts, we have every right to take all the benefit of said effort if we can get them without paying.

Copyright really and truly does encourage the furthering of the useful arts. To excess it stifles it, but some folks want copyright gone entirely.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

The creators of works license the rights to their works to those corporations, as is their discretion. The issue is solely with the term and scope of the law. Were I to write books, I'd use Amazon's KDP and POD infrastructures; if I made enough money, I'd hire a CPA to do my accounting. I can do all this stuff myself, although I'd hire an editor because obviously I'm blind to my own inadequate writing. I can even do all my own editing, but I'd rather contract an editor--without the obligation to follow his plot suggestions (publishers will dictate changes that editors suggest; self-published writers take them into consideration).

I could, instead, just write, pitch to a publishing house, and let them hand me back the editor's suggestions and copy, let them work out the printing, the marketing (which is beyond what I could do on my own reasonably), etc. It would be easier--I could write instead of worrying about running a business, typesetting, and finding start-up funds to pay the editor. My book would get on store shelves. As much would be printed as needed for physical distribution, on top of ebooks and POD. As part of that, I'd likely have to hand over limited rights to the text--perhaps for publishing in book, e-book, audiobook, or several of the above, and perhaps for a limited period, but some would have to be handed over. No publisher wants to compete with another publisher, and it doesn't help anyway; if I have a publisher looking to sell my ebook to B&N and Amazon, it's reasonable for him to demand that for the next 10 years only his firm can legally authorize ebook copies of my book.

Scope and corporate behavior are the issue. The actual fact of copyright, its uses, and corporations that specialize in providing services are all good things. The system is neither closed nor designed immune to abuse, and it will be abused in terrible ways; however it exists because its absence is equally bad or worse.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

Copyright really and truly does encourage the furthering of the useful arts. To excess it stifles it, but some folks want copyright gone entirely.

You can say that, but it doesn't make it true. If you take a second to look back from what we've accepted as common sense because it's what we know, copyright is a really bone-headed way of trying to accomplish the goal of furthering the arts.

Re:Yeah na bro

[w0mprat]

So infringement dropped. But did purchases of music and movies increase? That seems like a much more better question to ask.

That has been on the increase anyway, even before any law changes. It will make for a convenient statistic.

Re:Yeah na bro

[tragedy]

Considering how many people died from the governments alcohol poisoning program, that seems unlikely.

Re:Yeah na bro

[KingBenny]

=teh lulz
with all the campaigning here in europe they now get numbers filesharing has actually gone up i.o. down, some kind of backlash from having pushed too hard i suppose. Are these numbers accurate? If the government goes to such lengths as to keep numbers secret you can bet your sweet arse something isn't right there

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

Alright. Brandon Sanderson is going to have to devote his whole life to writing his novels if he's ever going to finish what he started. I don't mean the decology that's going to be The Way of Kings or the 9, now 12-13, and I suspect exactly 16 books that will fill out Mistborn. He has something going on that most people don't see. It's going to take probably 200 books.

How do we compensate this man so he can finish? A man's gotta eat, and he's gotta pay rent.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

How do we compensate this man so he can finish?

However he can. I can't say I'm familiar enough with him to suggest what model is best for him (and I don't really care about his works anyway), and a lot of opportunities have not yet come up because we've built an infrastructure off of a system of copyright. It's quite possible that the most reliable way or ways to make money will not be apparent until we've completely rid ourselves of copyright. In the days of print, the way things worked without copyright was that money was made by publishers selling manuscripts, and publishers would print a ton of books before competition could bring copies to the market. Authors in areas without copyright like Germany where that happened made more money, wrote more books, and the public read more books because they were widely available. Everybody was clearly better off except for the publishers. Now, the strategies for the digital world are likely different, although it'd be quite the miracle if a system that was designed by people who didn't have the capacity to know how to make a system work during their time managed to develop a system that would be the best way of doing that centuries later. It'd be basically the equivalent of a tobacco lobbyist building a cold fusion reactor.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

The most reliable way to feed ourselves will not be apparent until we rid ourselves of farming and distribution infrastructure, too.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

In the days of print, the way things worked without copyright was that money was made by publishers selling manuscripts, and publishers would print a ton of books before competition could bring copies to the market. Authors in areas without copyright like Germany where that happened made more money, wrote more books, and the public read more books because they were widely available. Everybody was clearly better off except for the publishers. Now, the strategies for the digital world are likely different

Different and how! The digital world allows us to, in less than one day, snatch up a paper print book and scan-and-OCR it. Crowd sourced manipulation would quickly bring in fixes for erroneous OCR, and maybe even typesetting. In a day or two we could have a complete e-book out there, on a Web site open to all, or maybe a Napster-alike that hadn't got shot down (did you see how friggin' popular Napster got? It nearly replaced purchased music!).

You have precisely six hours to capitalize on your work, Mr. Anderson. In that six hours, you have to convince as much of your market as possible that they simply cannot wait the six hours for a nearly-correct online release. You must convince them that they must have your book now. Your book must be in stores, on store shelves. Also, it must not have been leaked--if you get it out to stores over the night before release, it has to not fall into the nefarious hands of an Open Books enthusiast who will have the first several chapters online before the book is even for sale, and the rest up before anyone could possibly read them ... else the competition of "free" will beat you to your own release.

Maybe you should leave this business, Mr. Anderson. It seems it's too shrewd for you. You don't seem to be able to take the competition ... they're stripping the flesh from your bones, Mr. Anderson.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

Cute, except we don't have new knowledge that suggests that our farming methods are completely outmoded and counterproductive, and what farming practices we have that are have been largely replaced. However, legal monopolies are clearly a bad idea almost all of the time in regards to modern economic knowledge, and it's quite possible that the backwards existing policy could undermine the development of a modern one. It fits fairly well into an agricultural analogy. If your land is overgrown with weeds or covered in shade trees, then the resources to successfully grow most crops will not be there while they remain. You need to get rid of the old infrastructure in order to have a more productive one.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

Yes, but you completely ignored the part about how it'd be an enormous coincidence if copyright happened to work now. Copyright was designed with the print world in mind, and it was far worse there. Any reasonable enforcement scheme would be completely toothless to stop what you are talking about, and the kind of draconian scheme that might be able to put a dent in that would cost us more in civil liberties than copyright's social value can conceivably be even in the delusional minds of the the RIAA.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

Therefor, obviously, content creators have no rights to the content they create. Thus ends the useful arts.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

Authors only have the rights over controlling published works that are given to them by the government. Those government granted monopolies are only just to the extent that granting those rights are beneficial to the public. Since they are based on faulty concepts that don't actually work, they cannot not produce a benefit to the public, but incur significant social costs, there is no justified copyright. The only control an author can rightfully have over a work is control over the initial publishing, and only via control of their physical property, like a manuscript or data on their hard drive.

Also, the 'useful arts' in the context of the US Constitution actually refers to technology, not what we commonly call 'art.' A minor point, but it suggests an unfamiliarity on your part with copyright law's history, and that your support for copyright is likely based upon it being familiar to you and you having never put critical thought into it, as opposed to a viewpoint based upon actually studying the history, reading theory on copyright, and independently forming an opinion. Furthermore, it is not possible to end human creative endeavours outside of exterminating humanity. A perfect example is Trinidad and Tobago. The authorities took away their native instruments to control the population, and they created new music with bamboo sticks. The authorities took away the bamboo sticks, and then they created steel pans, a very beautiful new instrument. Even in the face of oppression, human creativity thrives.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

Since they are based on faulty concepts that don't actually work

There's a fallacy where you just make an assertion and hope people believe you, you know that?

Also, the 'useful arts' in the context of the US Constitution actually refers to technology, not what we commonly call 'art.' A minor point, but it suggests an unfamiliarity on your part with copyright law's history, and that your support for copyright is likely based upon it being familiar to you and you having never put critical thought into it

Thank you. I've put in critical thought now, and I realize that 'art' is not useful. Literature is a waste of time and I have implemented a policy by which school teachers who purport to have students read in class will be executed, and we'll start rounding up and burning all these worthless tomes so as not to corrupt future generations.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

There's a fallacy where you just make an assertion and hope people believe you, you know that?

If you want evidence on the matter, I suggest you read Against Intellectual Monopoly. It's written by two economists, and thoroughly debunks the idea of copyright and patents as being beneficial to society.

Thank you. I've put in critical thought now, and I realize that 'art' is not useful. Literature is a waste of time and I have implemented a policy by which school teachers who purport to have students read in class will be executed, and we'll start rounding up and burning all these worthless tomes so as not to corrupt future generations.

Congratulations on demonstrating your lack of reading comprehension. I was saying that your misuse of a term suggests that you are not deeply familiar with the subject. 'Useful arts' in the context of the constitution means arts that have a direct practical usage. 'Arts' is used here in the sense of a skill or trade. For example, 'martial arts' refers to the skills of combat, with 'Martial' being a reference to Mars, the Roman god of war. You also misunderstood the difference between something being 'not useful' and 'worthless.' In fact, if you knew much about copyright law, you'd understand that something that has utility is not eligible for copyright, although it may be patentable sometimes. That's why the fashion and automotive industry have a lot of free culture going on in their designs. The functional elements often cannot be separated from the non-functional elements.

Now, please pay attention. The critical thought is not in understanding the meaning of the words in the copyright clause. You need to actually look at historical and modern evidence, and read about various theories and analysis of those theories. Your misunderstanding of the specific words in the copyright clause have no real effect on the scope of copyright law since 'science' covers what you think is actually 'useful arts', but your misuse is a red flag that you are a novice in serious discussion of this matter. It would be akin to someone debating about philosophy pronouncing 'Socrates' as 'So-crates' in the same manner as Bill and Ted. Such a mistake is very hard to not write off as an idiot who has no idea what they are talking about.

Re:Yeah na bro

[bluefoxlucid]

You claim that the term "Useful" has a particular meaning to a document written over 200 years ago. This is ludicrous. While we're on the topic, let's have a flame war about whether the "right of the people" to "keep and bear arms" refers to individuals for self-defense or a militia for military defense; and if "people" refers to individuals or to "The People" as a whole and thus means that they can keep arms for an organized militia and bear arms against foreign invaders, but not carry for self-defense. No, seriously, this is a common argument between gun nuts and gun control nuts. At one point lawyers were trying to define what a fucking comma was supposed to mean (somebody should have used a semi-colon).

"Useful" does in fact mean that it has utility. If the support of our culture through the creative arts improves society, then it has utility and is thus one of the useful fucking arts.

As a matter of satire, I've previously thoroughly debunked the idea of driving being useful to society. People have thoroughly bunked the idea that exercise is good for you. Hell, I've thoroughly debunked the idea that diets will make you healthy--in a serious fashion, because they're not (you realize dinner and supper are two different things, right? There's two meals in the end of the day...). Economists live and die by flawed theories, like the Keynesian Economics that everybody uses to run their countries into the ground.

Re:Yeah na bro

[king neckbeard]

"

Useful" does in fact mean that it has utility. If the support of our culture through the creative arts improves society, then it has utility and is thus one of the useful fucking arts.

Congratulations, you've just argued that, under 17 USC 101, copyright in it's entirety is invalid. because

Such works shall include works of artistic craftsmanship insofar as their form but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects are concerned; the design of a useful article, as defined in this section, shall be considered a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work only if, and only to the extent that, such design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.

If the arts are all useful, then they are not protectable under copyright law because it specifically excludes things that are useful. I've already clarified that the way you want to say it is that the works have 'worth' or 'value' to society. However, they aren't useful in the relevant sense here. The complete works of Shakespeare might be able to get a table level, but so could any book of equal thickness, even if the pages were blank.

Please stop. You have no idea what you are talking about, and it's embarrassing to see you ramble on about something you don't know and dig your hole even deeper. This particular element wasn't even an issue in regards to the scope of what is copyrighted. It was just an attempt to show you that you are uninformed on this matter. Instead of taking a second, absorbing a bit of knowledge, and improving yourself, you've acted like a raving jackass and removed all doubt that you have no fucking clue what you are talking about.

But each infringer...

[Anonymous Coward]

...has doubled the amount copied.

Pays to Be Sneaky

[rueger]

New Zealand and rights holders reckon it halved the number of infringements in the first month.

Or just as likely, the heaviest downloaders just found better ways to fly under the radar. If "success" is measured by a drop from eighty percent to forty percent of users "stealing" content, I'd say it's time for the Industry to admit total defeat.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Sulphur]

New Zealand and rights holders reckon it halved the number of infringements in the first month.

Or just as likely, the heaviest downloaders just found better ways to fly under the radar. If "success" is measured by a drop from eighty percent to forty percent of users "stealing" content, I'd say it's time for the Industry to admit total defeat.

Its hard to spot a Kiwi on radar.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

a fully laden kiwi?

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

My completely anectdotal experience living in NZ is that people just found other ways. Seedboxes especially may have actually made the industry's problem worse as they're much faster for P2P connections than local NZ broadband connections have ever been and as such the volumes achievable are higher. For example I used to hear people talk of only getting averages of 200-300Kbps with P2P using the cheap ISP supplied modems, but they can get 2Mbps+ over an HTTP connection to a seedbox, and that seedbox itself might achieve 10MBps or more.

There was a 10% drop in NZ internet volume when the law came into effect, but little mention of the numbers since.

So yes, I'm inclined to believe they are seeing less infringement, but in reality there's likely more than ever.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

The way to see if the program was successful (from the "deterring copyright infringement" point of view) would be increased sales on legitimate channels.
The reduction of pirated download could mean people not being detected (as you suggested) or (as i would like it to be) that people, tired of being harassed, stopped consuming copyrighted music and videos (there is nothing good there, anyway).

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[xQx]

Or time to redefine "stealing" so it's in line with public perception.

Isn't that what a democracy is supposed to be about?

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely agree, people I knew were all moving to VPNs to hide traffic. This had the added benefit of enabling access to sites like Hulu, Netflix and BBC iPlayer.

(I haven't read the article but) It would be interesting to know how they measured the before and after values.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[digitig]

My immediate reaction on reading the title was "Shouldn't it be 'Three-Strikes Copyright Law In NZ Halves detection'"?

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[anubi]

I guess what bugs me is something like policing copyrights of publicly available information, especially music is almost impossible to enforce.

Rightsholders are quick to privatize their profits, however they are eager to socialize enforcement costs.

I do not want to get into a shouting match on whether or not it is theft to copy a song. Technically, I think it is, but practically, its like trying to enforce a clean mind when seeing porn.

It stretches honesty when one is hungry and sees his neighbor's apple tree, knowing the trunk of the apple tree is his neighbor's property, yet the fruit is hanging in his yard, even dropping on his lawn, and only some law, passed by some senators lobbied by the tree owner, says he can't pick the apple off his lawn and eat it, or even take a picture of it.

There are some things which are are very difficult to enforce... and tend to function not as a deterrent, but as a starting place for learning to disrespect obedience of law. I see this kind of law as a prime example of this.

Like prohibition, trying to enforce law like this does more harm than good, as it gets people started at a very early age to have no inner respect for law, obeying it not for the common good, but only for fear of punishment if caught. It does not foster respect for law, instead it fosters a sense of accomplishment for finding creative ways of disrespecting the law.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

My completely anecdotal evidence living in NZ is that I found another way: Usenet w/ SSL rather than Bittorrent. Switched ISPs to pay less for a more-than-doubled data cap, and I max out my connection whenever I download. Faster that BT, plus no data cap wasted on upload. Downside is nothing's free, but $100 a year for the account and index site subs isn't too bad.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

European or African?

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Black Parrot]

The way to see if the program was successful (from the "deterring copyright infringement" point of view) would be increased sales on legitimate channels.

Only if infringement is actually cutting into sales to begin with.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

given that the little buggers can't fly, its kinda hard to spot them on radar

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

If eighty percent of the population are breaking a particular law then you don't have a democracy.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Sulphur]

given that the little buggers can't fly, its kinda hard to spot them on radar

They fly at mach 6 and over a hundred thousand feet. They can pull 40 g in a turn, and they are being trained to protect the planet from spacecraft

Their radar cross section is less than a female mosquito's antenna. They also make a great sandwich.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[tftp]

Like prohibition, trying to enforce law like this does more harm than good, as it gets people started at a very early age to have no inner respect for law, obeying it not for the common good, but only for fear of punishment if caught.

I'm afraid you are about 50 or 100 years (if not more) too late. I don't know how it is in NZ, but in the USA respect for the law is not even a theoretical concept anymore. Widespread violations cannot be detected and the law enforced; this leads to loss of fear of punishment. You do not need to go too far to see proof of that. Everyone drives faster than the speed limit allows and the police does not even bother stopping anyone unless they are way over the limit. People jaywalk with no care in the world; robbers rob 24/7 stores as if it is their personal ATM; people park under signs "no parking", have sex in public parks, set up camps in public places, use drugs, and take dumps on police cars. What rule of law are you talking about? It's pure anarchy, with occasional firefighting done by few LEOs.

There is no law to respect either. Over the years new laws accumulated up to a whole library of books - some with laws and other with their interpretations. Most people quite reasonably think that the law is not protecting them. And how it can be, with laws against "disorderly conduct" and with people arrested for "resisting arrest" or for filming police or for taking photos of cities? On the other hand, real criminals (petty or not) are in and out of jail faster than you can keep track of them. The police is most certainly not your friend; LEOs are not interested in helping you and they have no duty to help you. They might kill you, though, if you give them half of an excuse, because safety of one officer is more important than ten dead bodies of the rabble.

With this whole train wreck continuing downhill with ever accelerating speed we will see more anarchy and fewer places where an nonest person can safely walk around. Downloads of music are just a minor blip on the radar of widespread lawlessness.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know a random file happybirthday.mp3 is a copyright violation? media never come with license agreements, or they are viewed only after downloading. Serve the notice back to them, enmass, for privacy and / or piracy trespassing on the internet

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[mhotchin]

If it wasn't cutting into sales, then deterring it is not 'effective' either. Putting a lot of effort into something that makes no difference is just a waste of time, so why bother?

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[TheGratefulNet]

case in point!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/22/california-police-fire-into-crowd-of-women-and-children-during-near-riot/

some quoting:

A near-riot broke out in Anaheim, California on Saturday after a police shooting left one man dead and angry witnesses began throwing bottles at police offers. Police responded by firing bean bags and rubber bullets into a crowd of terrified women and children and even loosed a police dog on one woman and her baby.

Residents, who have recently been complaining about alleged police violence, told KCAL 9 News that Manuel Diaz was running away from police who had attempted to speak with him when he was shot from behind with a bullet that hit him in the buttocks. He fell to his knees and was struck in the head by another bullet. Police handcuffed the motionless man and he was taken to the hospital, where he died three hours later.

However, it was what happened after residents had blocked off a street and set fire to a dumpster that left even the KCAL reporters shocked. Not only did the police fire on women and children, hitting at least one young boy, but a police dog was allowed to attack a mother with her child..

âoeThey just released the dog and I had my baby in the stroller,â the hysterical mother told the news team. âoeThe dog just grabbed me with his teeth.â

According to reporter Jay Jackson, dozens of people were filming the event with their cellphones, and four different people told him âoethat police officers offered to buy their video from them without any explanation.â

the youth and many middle aged folks now, due to events like this, distrust the police and the whole system of 'law' enforcement.

when stuff like this goes on (and it really does; this is not isolated; its happening more and more as our police become a private military for the upper classes) there is no respect for laws on the books.

I really wonder if its just the US and a few select countries or if the whole world really is going to hell in a handbasket. at times, its hard to stay positive when those in power pull shit like this and are fully shamless about it!

copying files - yeah, that's really a crime. but shooting into crowds, nah, not a crime.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[TheLink]

I wonder what's the total amount robbed each year by "conventional" robbers (e.g. 24/7 stores, bank heists, etc). 1 billion? Half a billion?

And what's the total amount "robbed" by those white-collar "robbers"...

In countries with no or poor social safety-nets, if you wipe-out/halve some poor/midclass person's savings, you've very likely shortened his/her lifespan.

Not justifying armed robbery of course, just looking at things from a different POV.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[tftp]

I wonder what's the total amount robbed each year by "conventional" robbers (e.g. 24/7 stores, bank heists, etc). 1 billion? Half a billion?

Using the FBI's average valuation of $6,152 per stolen vehicle, the 737,142 vehicles stolen during 2010 caused estimated property losses of $4.5 billion. link

And what's the total amount "robbed" by those white-collar "robbers"...

But you see, when US bankers rob foreigners they are helping the US economy, and therefore they are good guys :-) In reality, naturally, bankers take their profits from everything that ever passes through their hands. Collusion with the government makes it unavoidable.

In countries with no or poor social safety-nets, if you wipe-out/halve some poor/midclass person's savings, you've very likely shortened his/her lifespan.

That is true for everyone except people like Bill Gates, whose health is limited not by money they are willing to spend on it but by human knowledge and ability to deliver.

Not justifying armed robbery of course, just looking at things from a different POV.

Armed robbery is nothing but social security provided by the people themselves, instead of the government.

If you think about it, a social safety net is all about taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who do not. Reasons vary. You can have a case of a child who is born unable to work (Greeks would dump such a child and not think twice.) You can have a case of a firefighter who saved someone but got injured. You can have a case of a homeowner who was wounded by a robber. Or, far more likely, you can have a case of someone who just doesn't want to work.

All social safety nets are open to abuse. USSR had an excellent safety net; it was called "jobs for everyone." There was no social security, outside of pensions for genuinely injured. Those were given only to old people (no special requirements here) and to people who were proven, by a team of doctors, to be unable to work. That was not an easy test. There were several groups of disability, and the money depended on how much you were unable to work. Everyone else had to work. Jobs were available. Perhaps not good ones, but you could live even on salary of a night guard at a construction site. That was the only real safety net - availability of jobs. If an able-bodied man fails to work into the prison he goes (as soon as the local police detects the violation.)

IMO, you cannot have any other safety net. It will be abused beyond belief. That's what is happening. Now the govermnent cannot even go back on its promises. The lumpen proletariat will riot and destroy the whole country if checks stop coming. Reportedly, half of US citizens do not pay taxes - this means that they are either earning very little or they are on social security. The other half is not that enthused about paying for that.

Once someone gets onto social security there is no way back into the productive society. What employer will hire a man who hasn't worked for years? In USSR such a person wasn't possible; but let's say you were in prison and you are released. You would be accepted at any construction site, for example - and if you wanted you could talk to your police contact (who is following up on you) and he maybe would assist in getting you hired at the place of your choosing. In the USA no such system exists. Once you fall out of sync you are a lost bit, not wanted anymore and replaced by other bits many times since then.

People on social security then necessarily have tons of time to waste between their checks. Hence the crime. First of all, it's something to do. Then it's easy money. Then it's not reportable to the tax man, so your checks will keep coming. But in essence being robbed at your home by a masked intruder wielding a gun and being robbed at your wallet by the faceless government wielding a gun are

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

There would be a lot of people who would have wasted a lot of money if that were the case, so it's unlikely to be considered.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur. Even the most non-techie of my friends quickly found the new ways to circumvent.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[shentino]

Not to mention that the neighbor knows damn well that his apple tree is trespassing on your lawn. The owner of the tree knows that his apple tree is infringing on your own lawn, and very much likes taking your lawn space for free sunshine.

Rather like how the DMCA stops you from format shifting, backing up, jailbreaking, etc etc etc.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[gnasher719]

Everyone drives faster than the speed limit allows and the police does not even bother stopping anyone unless they are way over the limit.

That's a very bad example. Except for places where speed limits are taken as a source of income and everyone above the speed limit _will_ be stopped, speed limits are supposed to keep traffic safe. But it's not sticking to the actual number what makes traffic safe, it's the reduction in speed. If in place A there is a speed limit of 60 mph and everybody sticks to it and many people go slower, and in place B there is a speed limit of 50 mph and everybody goes faster and some people go 10 miles faster, then people go at the same speed in both places - and that's what counts.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Joce640k]

why bother?

Because they simply can't bear the thought of people getting their stuff 'for free', that's why.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[tftp]

It also solved the problems with Gypsies. They were forced to work, or jailed.

Largely, yes. The step #0 was to convince Gypsies that they should get houses for themselves and live like everyone else. The time of wandering tribes is long gone. Here is some music from a Soviet movie about Gypsies (one, to be specific.) Still, small groups of Gypsies could be found here and there, but by then they were mostly harmless.

Obviously, that sort of arrangement was untenable - workers ended up producing stuff no one wanted, also quantity went over quality.

Yes and no. Central planning was certainly poorly done. But this was time before computers. Good computers, with enough memory to manage the whole country, appeared only by 2000 or so. Planning with pencil and paper had no chance of success. Solving a system of linear equations with a few billion variables might be taxing even today, short of building specialized hardware. You also need correct and timely data to feed into this system. This couldn't happen before Internet (the system would oscillate from day zero.)

On the other hand, the capitalist method simply threw people at the problem. A businessman miscalculates - for the same reason, out of lack of information - and all his lfe savings are gone, and he joins the happy bunch of homeless under the nearest bridge. Is this better? In terms of the society - perhaps it is better indeed, because the society is developing in a highly parallel way, with hundreds of competing businessmen trying in every niche of the market. But the price of that success is high.

Quality of products, and scarcity under socialism are more related to the problem of governmental constraints on every economic activity. Until 1990's managers of factories were told everything - who to buy from, what to make, who to sell the product to and for how much. Want to make a better TV set? You are prohibited from doing that because it's not in the five-year plan. Want to buy parts from Japan? Good luck, you have no international currency since it's the state's monopoly. And so on. Many aspects of socialism added up to turn the overall experience into a miserable one.

And then there are the (mostly overlooked by the West) nasty side-effects of communism - absolutely no freedom of press/information, gathering, travel.

Freedom of travel within the country was not restricted. Travel abroad was, and nobody had the foreign money anyhow. But the general problem that you are describing is universal to all societies. Freedoms are tolerated only until they are harmless to the ruling class. Anyone in the USA can try to be a President, but only two selected candidates from two halves of one ruling party can win. Most of the discourse that is currently happening in the USA is 100% safe because both presidential candidates are identical. The MSM is trying hard to find a difference between the two, and there is very little to be found. They have it made; the populace is free to discuss advantages of one puppet vs. another puppet, as if that choice matters. USSR was much worse in this aspect, but in the end the USA will end up just like USSR, in pieces - and renewed in the process.

The reasons most people in the Eastern Europe oppose anything left of social-democratic is not because "sharing is bad and magical hand of free market is the only way" (which seems to be the main reason over here), but because of the lack of freedom the Stalinist implementation of communism carried with it.

I don't even know if Soviet rule can be classified as "left" or "right." On one hand, it had social services extended to everyone (medical, jobs, pensions.) On the other hand, the armed G-man was forcing you to work for the government. It was your choice where to work, but you worked for the state regardless. You could not work for yourself; severe limits were established between 1930's and 1980's on any collective work. The state was deat

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[tftp]

That's a very bad example.

IMO, it's a good example. The sign "60" means that you must not exceed 60, ever, for any reason whatsoever. You are correct in saying that from logical point of view this should be treated as a good advice for a wise and aware driver. But this line of thinking fails when the law gets involved. The law does not allow you to exceed this speed - though it requires you to reduce the speed further in case of adverse weather conditions.

When people regularly, habitually break one law then they are conditioned to say "Well, it's not legal to do $foo, but so what?" This happens often. Furthermore, if you do not want to break the law you are still forced to do so because driving considerably slower than the traffic is unsafe. The same people who drive 70 in 60 zone will drive 40 in 25 zone, and they will fail to turn the lights on when it gets dark, and they will do all kinds of stupid things just because they learned: laws of the road are not mandatory and you can always bend them to your liking. No license, no insurance? No problem. Drunk a little? Big deal, go ahead. Car belches smoke? Who cares. Want to ride a bicycle on a sidewalk? As much as you please. Need to buy alcohol or other drugs while being a teenager? Always can be arranged. And so on. Step by step the rule of the law is diluted. Unwise, politically driven laws - like those speed signs - are a factor too. These days one could afford electronic signs that would display the speed limit for here and now. Do we see those? I see them only on mountain passes, those "Install chains if lights are blinking" - and if you want you are welcome to go ahead on 2WD without chains, lots of luck to you on an incline, in 5" of fresh, soft snow. Your car, your ditch, your towing fees.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

My annecdotal evidence from New Zealand is I can barely afford to pay my ISP let alone pay for shit movies.

I'm so disillusioned with big content I no longer watch TV or movies. I barely even listen to the radio anymore. The news is all lies and now the cartells are tracking me. Might as well give me a padded cell, throw away the key and let me make movies in my head.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[martin-boundary]

It's more than that. The apple isn't just hanging over the yard or dropping on it, the neighbour is actively teasing and urging you to pick it up and take a bite 24/7.... and then cries foul if you don't pay him for the privilege.

The problem is that we live in a world where the media constantly barrage us with advertising, literally brainwashing us into believing that we can't have a normal life, if we don't go watch the latest movie, or listen to the latest song, or whatever.

This leads to people who are psychologically compelled to watch the latest blockbuster, or buy the latest music, just to stay relevant in their circle of friends, or feel like they're keeping up with the world around them. Since nobody can afford to buy all that crap, you do the math...

Cut the sustained advertising, and you'll see a natural drop in piracy.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Maxo-Texas]

Exactly.

You only lost about $100 sales to the college student who infringed $85,000 worth of songs and movies. And you will probably get the $100 as they buy "real" copies of the few things they really like.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[GameboyRMH]

I was just thinking this morning about an incident many years ago when a rich old dude who owned MS stock lost his shit at me when I talked about the practical necessity of pirating a copy of Windows as a broke 3rd-world teenager, calling me an entitled brat who didn't deserve to have it because I couldn't pay for it (keep in mind that in those days there was really no other practical desktop OS). I should simply have refrained from using any computers to stay within the rules, he argued in effect.

I thought to myself, that is one of the most ridiculous and silly things that I have ever experienced. This rich old man blasting a poor kid for subverting the rules of the silly game that made him rich, in a way that harmed exactly no-one. But it shouldn't be funny, his worldview was monstrous, horrible, a level of hyper-selfishness that transcends physical wealth and extends to symbolism.

To think that I had enough respect for that guy that I didn't respond...I should have told that disgusting man to go fuck himself immediately.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything flies if you put a big enough engine on it.

I'm pretty sure you need one hell of a pressure suit to keep a kiwi's insides on the inside at 40 g's.
Those things get all messy too, the green juice drips all down your hand and everything.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[keytoe]

IMO, it's a good example. The sign "60" means that you must not exceed 60, ever, for any reason whatsoever. You are correct in saying that from logical point of view this should be treated as a good advice for a wise and aware driver. But this line of thinking fails when the law gets involved. The law does not allow you to exceed this speed - though it requires you to reduce the speed further in case of adverse weather conditions.

I agree - I think it's a perfect example as well. Laws have become less about protection and safety and more about revenue and control. They're only couched in terms of safety to help sell them to the masses. A focus on safety would have a posted speed recommendation that was set to something reasonable for the road based on road conditions for the area. Exceeding this recommendation would allow an officer to pull you over, and if you were (in his judgement) operating in an unsafe manner you would be fined or arrested.

Of course, this will never work as it relies on empathy, honesty, rational thought and allowing someone to exercise judgement. Our society has been trying to stamp those traits out of law for some time, so I don't see this trend reversing. Instead we're instituting mandatory minimums, three strikes, overly broad sex offender and child pornography classifications and anything else we can think of to remove actual judgement from judging. And the jails are full to overflowing to the point we have to let violent offenders out to make room for the three time shoplifter.

It's pretty clear that when the bulk of your population routinely ignores a law that the law isn't welcome. And when those laws stay on the books despite an overwhelming majority opposing them, then you have a pretty good idea of who is actually in power.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[Solandri]

Yeah, you can use the studios' own argument against them here. If piracy was costing them umpteen bajillion dollars in revenue, and the 3-strikes law hasn't resulted in an increase in revenue of at least a few bajillion dollars, then by their own measure it hasn't reduced piracy. It's either driven it underground, probably to sneakernet. Or the anti-*IAA forces were right and most of those pirated songs never would've been sales in the first place, and so wasn't costing them anything.

Re:Pays to Be Sneaky

[w0mprat]

I'm in NZ and when the law changed a lot of my friends rapidly got up to speed on how to hide their activity, there was plenty of advice to go around and trivial methods of staying off the radar.

There is a marked increase in sharing by USB sticks and portable hard drives, especially in schools and university. In my office there was Swap Club for a while where a couple of 2TB drives got whored around.

So piracy would appear to fall, at least by the usual data collection methods (being precisely what anonymity methods target !).

We always used to pirate like crazy here because nobody ever got caught... ever, and even now I personally have not met or heard of anyone getting an infringement notice. Also as the US dollar plummets and our dollar gets high, a lot of retail prices for the genuine stuff fall, I wonder what impact that had.

So its questionable if the law has had any effect at all. Legit music services like Spotify and Rdio have started up down here to huge success. So maybe none!

Begpardon?

[Tastecicles]

It's not rights holders doing the complaining, it's the industry associations (read: RIAA/MPAA or NZ equivalents), who themselves hold no copyrights apart from their corporate logos.

To them, I refer them to the response given in Arkell -v- Pressdram (1971):

We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off.

Re:Begpardon?

[LordLimecat]

It's not rights holders doing the complaining, it's the industry associations (read: RIAA/MPAA or NZ equivalents), who themselves hold no copyrights apart from their corporate logos.

They ARE rights holders, otherwise they would have no standing to complain about infringement or bring cases to court.

Re:Begpardon?

[AK Marc]

It's not rights holders doing the complaining, it's the industry associations (read: RIAA/MPAA or NZ equivalents), who themselves hold no copyrights apart from their corporate logos.

It's not even that. It's the Australian versions of the American Associations that are pressuring NZ government, sometimes through local PACs set up for the sole purpose of hiding their 100% foreign ownership, but often directly as well.

Re:Begpardon?

[bmo]

Industry associations do not hold the copyrights. In English Common Law, the actual copyright holder (read publisher or author) is the one that has standing to sue.

If you look at the actual lawsuits in the US where we follow English Common Law with regards to this stuff, it's never "RIAA vs. Joe Anonymous" it's always "Universal Studios vs. Joe Anonymous." The RIAA and MPAA just have the loudest mouths, so journalists and common folk think it's them who are doing the suing when no such thing happened.

You must hold the copyright to have standing in court. Whatever industry associations there are in NZ, they are third parties and thus have no standing. Sure they can lobby and file briefs as amicus curiae, but they don't have any actual standing.

--
BMO

Re:Begpardon?

[AK Marc]

They are a non-rights holder hired to enforce rights. This became an issue in the US when the court case was thrown out because the enforcement organization had rights to pursue violations, but not rights to the object themselves. The ruling was that they could be correct on all counts, but they could not have suffered any loss. They argued that with statutory penalties, such things were irrelevant, but the judge ruled that statutory losses are for when losses are otherwise hard to determine or have other externalities, and when the number is provably $0, then that number must be taken instead.

Re:Begpardon?

[Grumbleduke]

Everyone is a rights holder. We all have some rights of some sort or another.

Also, (very nearly) almost everyone is a copyright owner. Given that copyright (in most places) covers anything from a doodle or quick email (or a /. post) to a great piece of artistic craftsmanship, the only way someone wouldn't be a copyright owner is if they had signed a contract with someone handing over all their copyrights (...talking of record companies).

As for the RIANZ doing the complaining, if the NZ law is anything like the UK one, it is specifically designed so that industry associations can make the allegations and so on (mainly because most copyright owners can't really be bothered with this sort of thing, but are happy to pay their industry association a fee to do it for them). If not, it will still be the industry association who kicks up a fuss, publishes press releases and does the research, because that's how they justify their existence and pay-cheques.

Re:Begpardon?

[Grumbleduke]

Industry associations do not hold the copyrights. In English Common Law, the actual copyright holder (read publisher or author) is the one that has standing to sue.

Actually, under English law copyright is wholly a creature of statute, there's no such thing as "common law" copyright (and one of the first big copyright cases, Donaldson v Beckett 1774, turned on that). As such, who can and cannot sue depends on what the statute says. My understanding of English procedural law is that anyone with an "exclusive licence" to do something protected by the copyright can bring a claim, however the actual copyright owner, and all other exclusive licensors must be joined to the case for it to go anywhere (which was the technical point that brought down the ACS:Law case, where they weren't even sure who some of the copyright owners were).

But yes, generally it is the copyright owner bringing the claim, as a key part of tort-related cases is showing damage - and if you're just an industry association, you won't have suffered any loss from the infringements.

However, as I've noted below, this isn't about suing for copyright infringement, this is about notifications and allegations of copyright infringement under a special law. I don't know about the NZ version, but the UK equivalent allows anyone "authorised" to act on behalf of a copyright owner to make the allegations, and it is understood that it will be the industry associations (particularly the BPI, MPAA and Publishers Association) who will be doing the actual dirty work. This lets them accuse in bulk, and has the bonus of protecting the actual copyright owners and artists from negative feedback.

Re:Begpardon?

[bmo]

This became an issue in the US when the court case was thrown out because the enforcement organization had rights to pursue violations

It's not just that. Bringing suit without standing pisses off judges because they have better things to do than waste their time listening to people who aren't damaged parties bringing suit.

These rights are not assignable without assigning the copyrights. The courts have said time and again that the only people with the standing to sue are the copyright holders themselves. This is settled law. It is the reason why Righthaven (an example of the above) is no longer a going concern and the lawyers associated with Righthaven have had to pay for court sanctions out of pocket.

Suing without having standing, and insisting you do, and fucking around with the court system and pissing off judges is a quick way to fines and disbarment.

--
BMO

Re:Begpardon?

[Phrogman]

Then its that authorization clause that needs to go first. If you want to accuse me of something in court, the least you can do is do it yourself, not farm it off to some third party contractors solely because it makes it easier for you to accuse your supposed customers.
It sure would be nice if government would stop favoring the corporations in these matters, but I guess the bribes are just too good to ignore.

Re:Begpardon?

[Kittenman]

Also, (very nearly) almost everyone is a copyright owner. Given that copyright (in most places) covers anything from a doodle or quick email (or a /. post) to a great piece of artistic craftsmanship, ...

My /. posts are great pieces of artistic craftsmanship, you insensitive clod!

PS Including this one

Re:Begpardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note, no cases have been brought to the copyright tribunal. There have been a number of third strikes but none of these were considered a good trial prospect by the RIANZ. Their refusal to comment on why they didn't pursue these further implies a lack of standing.

Re:Begpardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I've made so many posts over the years, I forget about the good ones. Its too bad I have multiple personality disorder. Sometimes I don't even recognize posts I made. Maybe I should change my password from Hunter2?

Re:Begpardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. I don't know how this works in NZ, but when I published my first book in Germany, I had to sign a membership contract with the German equivalent of the pen club (writers' copyright trolling association) in addition to the contract with the publisher that gave away all my rights. It's not even blackmailing of any sort, for the publishers this procedure is just completely normal and expected, like when you sign for having a package delivered, they will insist on it and I doubt I would have gotten the contract without signing. I'm pretty sure it's much worse in the music business.

Re:Begpardon?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

/. agrees.

Re:Begpardon?

[Rich0]

True, but all that happens is that the RIAA lawyers give the studio lawyers a stack of documents with "insert name here" blanks all over the place, and the studios file the suits. Whether they pay for it in their RIAA dues or not isn't really that big of a deal - they still collude to reduce their costs, and as the copyright holders they have standing.

As others have pointed out all this does is drive serious piracy further underground, while bankrupting the occassional parent who has a teenager running Kazaa without their knowledge (as such a parent I can't tell you how paranoid I get about this stuff - and without doing daily computer checks it is almost impossible to stay on top of - all you need is for one of little Johnny's friends to tell him that he's been running FooNet for years without a problem and little Johnny will be happy to install it without bothering to tell the "uninformed" parents).

How about this instead?

[gman003]

Have you tried "knocking this fasco-capitalist shit off before the revolution comes and lines you all up against the wall"?

'cuz that's what's gonna happen if you don't. Brick wall. Machine gun. Get the picture?

A fitting end to the MAFIAA, I think.

Re:How about this instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can stop trying to sound like a badass now. You're not one. Get the picture?

Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

When the law came into effect, everyone shifted to direct download sites, which can't be tracked like torrents can. Then everyone heard from friends who didn't shift that they didn't get any notices, so they've all shifted back.

Re:Not anymore.

[LordLimecat]

When the law came into effect, everyone shifted to direct download sites, which can't be tracked like torrents can.

You have that backwards. With direct-download, theres a very clear download log saying X downloaded from this server.

With torrent, that ISNT the case.

Re:Not anymore.

[AK Marc]

You are 100% wrong, in that downloaders are not targeted. The targets are always uploaders, and if you download a file from a direct downloader, you did not distribute the file. With torrent, when you connect, you offer, as well as receive, parts of the content. That is an uploading activity.

Re:Not anymore.

[Grumbleduke]

Yes, but to get that download log you need access to the download server, yes (IanaITguy)? And if that server doesn't keep logs for long, or refuses to hand them over without a court order, it can be very hard for a third party to get hold of the info. Plus (at least in the EU) you have issues with data protection and privacy about access to that data.

With P2P stuff, though, it's really easy; you just join in the swarm, share the file with some people and log the IP addresses and times. You then have much more reliable evidence of both downloading and uploading (assuming you've done it correctly), without having to involve an extra party (although you'll still need the ISP to turn that IP into a person), and without as many of the data protection/privacy issues, as this data is all "in the public domain."

Re:Not anymore.

[king neckbeard]

Those logs aren't publicly accessible, though, so DDL is harder to track from the outside than torrents.

Re:Not anymore.

[Kalriath]

Who cares? On a technicality, downloading isn't illegal. Uploading is.

Re:Not anymore.

[Grumbleduke]

Depends on the jurisdiction. I would imagine NZ law is similar to UK law, in which case downloading probably is illegal as well, but much harder to prove both that it happened, and that the copyright owner suffered a loss.

Actually, English law is completely insane at the moment due to a rather odd judgment that managed to slip through the Court of Appeal (although the Supreme Court will hopefully fix it next year). Under this ruling, merely visiting a website, or receiving an email can count as copyright infringement if you don't have permission to make a copy of the copyrighted contents of the page/email. While there was some discussion of website owners giving "implied licences" to copy by putting something on their website it was pointed out that these didn't matter if there was an express licence... which would, in theory, include something like "All rights reserved". So if you're in England, and you visit a website that says "All Rights Reserved" on it (such as /.), well done, you've probably just committed copyright infringement.

Re:Not anymore.

[X.25]

You have that backwards. With direct-download, theres a very clear download log saying X downloaded from this server.

With torrent, that ISNT the case.

So, what you are saying is that NZ 'right holders' have access to logs on direct download server located in [insert favorite country]?

Really, there is a reason humans have brain. You should use it.

Re:Not anymore.

[LordLimecat]

Again, with a direct download site, there is a very clear log saying "X Uploaded this file".

Torrents require you to actually download from someone to prove they have uploaded, since there isnt a central distribution site that can be subpoena'd.

Re:Not anymore.

[LordLimecat]

Yes, but to get that download log you need access to the download server, yes (IanaITguy)?

Once you check that the file is offered by the site, you can get a warrant, and the operators will give you access.

And if that server doesn't keep logs for long

Lol.

or refuses to hand them over without a court order,

Which would be the first order of business.

Plus (at least in the EU) you have issues with data protection and privacy about access to that data.

Not an EU law expert, but Im guessing that doesnt apply to court orders / discovery.

Re:Not anymore.

[AK Marc]

I can't tell if you are just not getting it, or if you are being purposefully obtuse.

They don't care about uploaders. They only go after downloaders who upload, never downloaders who don't upload. And uploaders aren't being targeted clearly. They "should have" gone after the megauploads uploaders. They didn't. They aren't. They targeted the owner, but not the uploaders. But they want to scare downloaders into thinking that just downloading will get you arrested. So they go after P2P almost exclusively. And people that upload to a direct download site are safe, so long as they aren't also the owner of the site, at least so far in the megaupload case.

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

If corporations can get away with shifting stuff to avoid inconvenient laws, maybe private individuals can do it too. If you live in a country where it's legal to download, what you might try is rent/get a server in a country where P2P is legal/decriminalized, then download from it. There are more countries in the first category than the second. But you may wish to consult a good lawyer to see whether this is legal in your country or not.

By the way, in a prev workplace we were told we can't turn on certain logs in certain countries because it's illegal, but maybe things have changed since.

Re:Not anymore.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol.

It's a very real possibility.

It's not exactly easy to go after downloaders, either. It's not like torrents where you're advertising your ip address and anyone can get it. You need a warrant, and it may be hosted in an entirely different country.

Not to mention that some countries allow downloading but not uploading.

Re:Not anymore.

[Grumbleduke]

Once you check that the file is offered by the site, you can get a warrant, and the operators will give you access.

Yes, of course. But you need to get a warrant, and that's going to be tricky if it is just casual downloading (which isn't a crime, or even unlawful in most places) so you're into the realm of civil remedies. Which means suing the site operator and probably paying their expenses (could easily get into the $thousands). And then you have to rely on both them having the data, and that data being accurate (Ireland's three-strikes law was nearly scuppered because Eircom didn't bother to update their database times with daylight savings), and you being able to prove that... it's all extra hassle. Much easier to just connect to a P2P network.

It's important to remember that the people doing this monitoring are trying to do it as cheaply and efficiently as possible - particularly in the cases where this is being done for profit*, rather than to actually help authors and creators.

Not an EU law expert, but Im guessing that doesnt apply to court orders / discovery.

In the EU we have this curious thing whereby certain fundamental laws (including privacy) apply all the time, and to get around them you need to show the interference with that law is proportional. From what I remember, that came up in the Promusicae case; the defendant ISP argued that it couldn't legally hand over subscriber details even with a court order.

*By which I mean short term profit; making money from threatening letters demanding payments etc. Obviously, as this almost exclusively involves ltd companies, they're pretty much all in it for profit eventually.

Re:Not anymore.

[GameboyRMH]

You realize that downloading torrents involves uploading as well, unless you've gone out of your way to configure your client to act in a very "selfish" mode that doesn't serve the downloader's interests...right?

Re:Not anymore.

[AK Marc]

I do. Read what I wrote again, and point out anything that's not consistent with that. That was my point. But a leach isn't the initial uploader. They target leaches because they want to create a terroristic attack on downloaders.

Note that all the press releases state "downloader sued" when the charges are always for "uploading" only. They are lying to scare people.

Re:Not anymore.

[Kalriath]

Nope. Our law only considers it unlawful to make unauthorised copies - when you download it is the uploader that is making the copy and thus violates the law. Downloading via web sites is still an area the law hasn't addressed. That said, they could possibly hold that the instant you use that data (which requires copying it into RAM) without a license you are breaking the law.

Re:Not anymore.

[Rich0]

Oh, they'd be happy to go after the initial seeds as well.

However, some guy who does the uploading for a major Warez group knows what they're doing and they're not going to be seeding a torrent for a week from their home PC in some jurisdiction that the rights holder has easy access into. These guys are fairly hard to catch as a result.

Johnny Teenager who doesn't care if their parents get sued since they've never seen $6k in their entire life and doesn't have any concept of what happens is a different story. They are told by their friend that if they download this program they can install the lastest big-name-game/song on their computer, and it is really easy, and so far their friends haven't gotten in trouble so what could go wrong? They just download files and seed away and are oblivious to the fact that their growing library is being sniffed by 47 different studios/etc, until their parent gets a nice letter demanding payment. Unless the parent goes digging through their PC every week chances are that they won't notice it - if the kid is in their late teens parents aren't going to be monitoring them that closely.

Uh-huh, right

[artor3]

So, the people behind the law claim that it is effective enough to have been justified, but not effective enough to remove the need for even more industry-friendly laws.

How convenient.

Re:Uh-huh, right

[aaronb1138]

I like the number juggling. They say it has curtailed infringement by 1/2 but still 40% continue to pirate. Ok, let's consider the math for a moment. If 80% of your population is pirating to begin with, than it stands to reason that piracy should be legal as the common law votes tend to be strongly in favor.

If I lived in a sovereign nation where 80% of the people were pirating material regularly, I would certainly try to get the issue tossed onto a ballot or referendum to just get it legalized outright.

Re:Uh-huh, right

[Ash-Fox]

I don't think 80% of the internet users in NZ equals 80% of the NZ population.

Re:Uh-huh, right

[Calydor]

Close enough, really. According to several different sources internet access is had by around 84.5% of the population. Even if the remaining 15.5% are all law-abiding non-downloaders the 80% of the online population (~67.6% of the total population) are still quite a lot more than half the entire country.

Costs per infringement

[bmo]

Rights holders want the current NZ$25 infringement notice processing fee payable to ISPs to be dropped to just a few dollars or even pennies, so that they can send out thousands of notices a month.

So what they're really saying that infringements actually cost them less than $25 per infringement in the long run. Because if it was like the thousands of dollars per, that they claim, they wouldn't have a bitch about a $25 fee. It would be a no-brainer and the battle against piracy would fatten their coffers easily even with the $25 fee. But no, they say it's too expensive. It's only too expensive if the net gain is negative.

>the ISPs want it increased to $100

Considering the vetting and such and going through the motions to send a customer a notice, I believe it. Even inter-office memos are not free. You'd be surprised what one actually costs if you measured it.

The IP enforcers have no leg to stand on with regards to this argument. By all rights, the ISPs should at least double their price. And the IP enforcers should shut up and take it.

--
BMO

Re:Costs per infringement

[Zaelath]

I want the cost of filing complaints against rights holders reduced to pennies as well, so they can be deluged with trivial notices that cost them a fortune in salary to wade through.

I'm w/ BMO; $100 sounds cheap compared to the eleventy billion dollars every shared copy of mp3 causes in damage.

Re:Costs per infringement

[msobkow]

But the *AA industries have never been willing to pay for enforcement. For as long as I've heard them whining and bitching in my life, part of their whine and bitch routine was to justify why someone else should pay the costs of enforcement.

They are, without a doubt, the single most "self entitled" group I have ever encountered. Even the religious organizations which beg their parishioners for money don't claim the money is owed to them like these trough-suckers do.

Re:Costs per infringement

[rtb61]

Why not, someone else created the completely artificial means by which they profit, copyright law. Even when absolutely no attempt is made to ensure the content does in fact promote science and the useful arts as required under law, which technically means those profits have been stolen, factually stolen as that money was not 'copied' it was parasitically removed from the economy.

Report from the Ground

[Anonymous Coward]

Only popular music was being tracked. I know many, many people that continue to download movies, music and T.V. via torrent.

Re:Report from the Ground

[Anonymous Coward]

I.
I don't download music. It's mostly shit these days.
I don't download good movies, I watch then in the theatre. Not so good ones, I download.
I don't watch free-to-air TV in NZ because half the shows get cancelled before they are even shown here. I don't want to wait 3 - 18 months to watch an episode.

what are "Pennys"?

[Anonymous Coward]

"pennys" ... you'll never hear a New Zealander use that phrase unless they were talking about those antique coins granny has on her mantle piece.
Closest thing to a "penny" is a 10 cent piece (no longer any 1, 2 or 5 cent coinage) so stop trying to nickel and dime away NZ culture
 

Re:what are "Pennys"?

[rossdee]

The plural of penny is pennies. Penny's refers to something belonging to a girl called Penny.

NZ switched to decimal currency in 1967 ("the 10th of July - next year")
After that date the most common use of that coin was to improve the electrical connection in torches that used D size batteries.

Re:what are "Pennys"?

[marxz]

The plural of penny is pennies. Penny's refers to something belonging to a girl called Penny.

NZ switched to decimal currency in 1967 ("the 10th of July - next year") After that date the most common use of that coin was to improve the electrical connection in torches that used D size batteries.

which only goes to show you how much we post pounds and pennys... I mean pennies... antipodeans know about these penny things - I was born 1967 so have no real/practical experience with the old money.

This is getting interesting...

[Anachragnome]

This is getting interesting.

Earlier this month ISPs came to an agreement with the recording/movie industry to enact a "6 strikes" policy to punish copyright infringement. (see ArsTechnica article, as previously discussed on /. -- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/major-isps-agree-to-six-strikes-copyright-enforcement-plan/ )

The very next day after the article was published, I noticed something interesting when I was using BitTorrent--aside from request overhead, I was uploading zero data. I'm currently watching a 3.1GB torrent--1.79 GB downloaded and 0.0 uploaded. And no, it isn't my client settings. I have checked them several times, nor did I change them any from when I was uploading normally. Seeding a completed torrent does nothing--it just sits there with no activity.

To put it in simple terms, Comcast (my ISP) is throttling uploads by 100% but not touching download rates (at least mine). Are they, in essence, protecting their customers from the "6 strikes" policy they agreed to enforce? If so, I assume they are doing this to prevent losing customers that continue using P2P software.

I can't imagine the MPAA/RIAA will be very happy about this.

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

well eventually your ratios are going to be fucked and you're going to get banned from download anymore...unless of course you're using some lawyer-bait public tracker. so they're indirectly banning you from torrents without saying so.

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Adrian Lopez]

The very next day after the article was published, I noticed something interesting when I was using BitTorrent--aside from request overhead, I was uploading zero data. I'm currently watching a 3.1GB torrent--1.79 GB downloaded and 0.0 uploaded. And no, it isn't my client settings. I have checked them several times, nor did I change them any from when I was uploading normally. Seeding a completed torrent does nothing--it just sits there with no activity.

Hasn't Comcast been doing something similar for several years prior to that article being published?

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Kalriath]

I find it drastically unlikely. If I'm not mistaken, almost all US ISPs are also rights-holders, or closely affiliated with them. It's more than likely just traffic management gone insane.

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Anachragnome]

"Hasn't Comcast been doing something similar [torrentfreak.com] for several years prior to that article being published?"

Not according to my own experiences with Comcast (I've been a customer for 10 years...Yeah, I know. No other choice unless I want a 10th of the bandwidth).

I've always been capped at 1.5MB/sec download speeds (P2P--I get advertised download rates for everything else). I still get that. What changed was the upload. In the past, what I found through some experimentation was that Comcast had an upload cap that changed based on the time of day--if you exceeded this cap your connections were reset, dropping both download and upload rates to zero, then they would slowly climb back up to normal until you exceeded the cap again. The ramp-up took long enough that it hurt your download rate enough to make it not worthwhile to exceed the upload cap. The cap varied from 65kb/sec (noon) to 200kb/sec(3 am). In response to this I simply changed my upload rates to prevent triggering the cap resets. I'm sure that was the whole idea. That being said, I was able to upload, just at very limited rates. Now, zero. Period.

There was one exception--If I was downloading on two machines locally (but NOT networked), they would hook up to each other via BitTorrent and pass data to each other with no limits to upload rates. I assume that was because both machines were using static IPs behind a single Comcast-issued dynamic IP and Comcast sees that as "OK", I guess. The only reason I ever even noticed this is because I often used two machines to effectively double my download rates (been awhile, and I haven't tried it since the uploads stopped altogether).

There might be another reason for this, but I am not sure exactly how this works, so I'll just throw it out there--Magnetic Links. If nobody is uploading anything but the overhead/requests, doesn't this break, eventually, magnetic links? Aren't the file information/hashes shared/managed by the peers now, instead of centralized trackers? Could they be trying to break that whole model?

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Anachragnome]

"Hasn't Comcast been doing something similar [torrentfreak.com] for several years prior to that article being published?"

I should have mentioned this in my other response to your post, rather then posting again. Better late then never?...

I know for a fact that Comcast allowed seeding as recently as two months ago. How do I know this? Because I already received a "copyright infringement" warning for a previous torrent, before they even announced the "6 strikes" policy. If I wasn't sharing data in the form of uploads, that warning would never have been issued as only uploaded data is considered infringing.

Their upload caps applied though.

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

To put it in simple terms, Comcast (my ISP) is throttling uploads by 100% but not touching download rates (at least mine).

I also have Comcast. If they're doing this, I wonder why they're not doing it to me?

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's strange. I'm on Comcast and my BitTorrent uploads work just fine. (I checked just now: I'm definitely uploading on multiple torrents.)

Magnet links (usually) use distributed trackers (DHT), but as I understand it, that's a somewhat separate protocol from BitTorrent. That is, I'm pretty sure you could block DHT and BitTorrent independently of each other. I am pretty sure Comcast is not presently blocking DHT, but that is an interesting idea: it wouldn't completely disable BitTorrent but it would put pressure on sites like PirateBay which have switched to magnet links to limit their storage/bandwidth needs.

Re:This is getting interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Than, not then. Perhaps Comcast will send you a nice "Grammar Infringement" letter.

Re:This is getting interesting...

[dmacleod808]

I got one of these too.... I haven't used "bittorrent" since... the first rule of club... is don't talk about club.

Is that the correct measure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if true, is it really achieving what they want? Not producing any product would also drop infringment.

How do sales look since the introduction of 3 strikes compared to other countries without 3 strikes over the same time period?

Re:Is that the correct measure?

[Grumbleduke]

From my dealings with these people, what they want is control. They want to stop people from getting music, films or other entertainment content from the Internet, whether for free or for a price, from anywhere that isn't under their control. That's where the notification system comes in; most people unlawfully file-sharing probably know what they are doing is illegal, they've probably heard most of the arguments about it being "theft" and "depriving poor starving artists" and so on, and either don't believe that or don't care.

Instead, these letters are targeted at the less technologically aware, at parents, at whoever pays the bills, with the aim of scaring them; creating the impression that "if you are letting your child/friend/anyone using your computer get music/films from the Internet and not from an approved site you are breaking the law and we will come after you, and you will face huge fines, and you will be disconnected from the Internet."

The biggest threat the legacy industries face is not from the file-sharing itself, but the spread of this idea that music, film, entertainment content etc. can be acquired for free (or cheaply), whether legally or not, from the Internet. As people get more and more used to low-cost entertainment, they might start questioning why they should pay $20 for a cinema ticket, or $30 for a CD, when they can get a similar experience for free, or for a much smaller fee, elsewhere.

a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse

[Joe_Dragon]

a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse and let's small Rights holders have there say.

Re:a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse

[Adrian Lopez]

a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse and let's small Rights holders have there say.

Is $25 not considered a small fee, especially when taking into account the losses being claimed as owing to infringement?

Conversely, if the fee is too high for "small rights holders" then how much money are they really losing from infringement rather than plain old lack of success?

Re:a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to add that it should be "too" not "to," and "fee" not "fees"

Re:a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse

[shentino]

They should charge the fees they pay to the infringers they catch.

Re:a small but not to small fees keeps out abuse

[jez9999]

Wow. This should be framed and hung up in every classroom as an example of what happens if you don't study English grammar.

The next question is...

[majesticmerc]

Have sales gone up?

If sales have gone up, then congratulations, you've scored a minor victory against those stealing to avoid paying for decent content, but if not, what exactly have you achieved? Sure, people have stopped *cough* "stealing" your content, but they're not buying it either, it simply proves it wasn't worth paying for in the first place.

Either that, or they're still downloading it for free, they just figured out another way to do it without getting caught. Thus continuing the perpetual cycle of cat and mouse between the consumer and the dying business model of the entertainment industry.

Re:The next question is...

[Grumbleduke]

If you're interested, there was a study done into the effects of the French law (Hadopi) using iTunes sales provided by the major record companies. The full study is here if you're interested and it found a 50% relative increase in iTunes sales ... when the law was being debated in the French Parliament, but no change when letters or disconnections were taking place.

However, that study has all sorts of other problems with it (such as missing some other relevant points, and having a rather dubious control group); if you're really, really interested, I got angry enough at the IFPI and politicians using this to justify the UK equivalent that I wrote a counter-paper, which can be found here.

Re:The next question is...

[fustakrakich]

...dying business model of the entertainment industry.

I'm sorry, Netcraft has not confirmed that. Of course, in order to avoid honoring its obligations, the industry will tell you they didn't make a dime.

Re:The next question is...

[wvmarle]

If you're interested, there was a study done into the effects of the French law (Hadopi) using iTunes sales provided by the major record companies. The full study is here if you're interested and it found a 50% relative increase in iTunes sales ... when the law was being debated in the French Parliament, but no change when letters or disconnections were taking place.

iTunes music store launched in France on 15 June 2004.

iTunes started offering movies in France on 30 April 2009.

Hadopi was being discussed in parliament in April/May 2009, which coincides with the launch of the movies section of iTunes. And as such product launches are usually accompanied by major marketing pushes, I'm not surprised that the iTunes sales went up a lot in that period. Having more on offer - a complete new product line in this case - is usually a recipe for increasing sales, too. That it happened while Hadopi was being discussed may be mere coincidence.

Remember: correlation is not causation!

Re:The next question is...

[Grumbleduke]

Aah, interesting - I hadn't spotted that factor (again demonstrating why these studies are so pointless; it's impossible to be scientific and eliminate or account for all possible other factors). But yes, the study is pretty rubbish; also, if you look at the actual data, the French iTunes sales were already increasing relative to the control group before the start of their data period; just when drawing their graph the lined up the sales figures from before May 2009 to make it look obvious, so I'm not sure there even was anything of a bump.

Some thoughts on studies and numbers

[Grumbleduke]

Only halved? I thought these things were supposed to have a 70% reduction according to the earlier surveys. Oh wait, those surveys are complete rubbish, as is most data on this sort of thing. The surveys for how much this sort of thing would reduce filesharing are all over the place; according to the IFPI, the French version, Hadopi, would cause 71% reduction in unlawful file-sharing, whereas a ZdNet.fr survey put it at 4%. Then there was a really fun Hollywood-sponsored survey from Australia that found 74% would stop infringing - unfortunately, in the fine detail, it turned out only 11% were actually committing copyright infringement on a regular basis, so at least 15% of people don't infringe regularly, but wouldn't stop even if threatened by their ISP.

This is definitely one of those "detailed-study-complete-with-full-figures-and-methodology or it didn't happen" situations.

However, it is interesting to see that the RIANZ are claiming that half isn't enough, and that more needs to be done. It mirrors my concerns about these laws elsewhere (particularly in the UK, obviously) that they have no criteria for success or failure, nor any real way to measure effectiveness. It means that once implemented the RIAA/Rianz/BPI are free to say "This is working, so we need more!" or "This isn't working, so we need more!" or "We're not sure whether or not this is working, so we need more!" no matter what actually happens, and we're back to copyright enforcement for the sake of copyright enforcement.

Fortunately in the EU these sorts of charges to ISPs were declared unlawful, so copyright owners are being forced to meet most of the bill for the UK three-strikes program (although subscribers will have to pay an arbitrary £20 to appeal allegations made against them).

The one good thing about the UK version, though, is that the government were persuaded that, once the three-strikes law is in force, someone should actually look into whether or not such a law is needed or will do any good, so in a year or so, after over 1m letters being sent (and however many lawsuits and prosecutions), we may actually get some independent and reliable data on this whole "online infringement of copyright" thing.

[Disclaimer: I 'work' as a lobbyist in this area and am currently in the middle of consultation work on the UK version of this sort of thing - so I'm rather biased. For anyone in the UK interested in this, the Ofcom consultation is available here and closes on Thursday.]

Re:Some thoughts on studies and numbers

[Kalriath]

Actually, the New Zealand government is also obliged to review the three-strikes law as well, and this is that review happening. Interestingly, although the music industry has been utilising their weapon quite frequently, the motion picture industry has flat out refused to, until the $25 fee is abolished (making it so ISPs have to foot the bill for enforcing their content - they claim that "ISPs make all of their profits from infringement of our copyrights, so they should pay"). Additionally, there have been a small number of people who have hit three strikes, and the music industry has not pursued disconnection for those people - presumably because pursuing it means taking it to a tribunal which might actually require evidence of infringement.

Re:Some thoughts on studies and numbers

[Grumbleduke]

Mm, something similar is happening in the UK; but here Ofcom is planning to sit the major lobby groups down and force them to sign up to the scheme before they set it off (under their plan, the enforcement groups have to "buy" infringement allegations in advance, before each year-long period).

As for the reporting, the main problem I have with the UK plan (and the NZ plan by the sound of it) is that the reporting, investigating and evidence-gathering is happening after the law goes into force. Call be a radical/extremist, but I was generally under the impression that you gathered evidence first, and then put in place policy (particularly something fairly expensive)...

Re:Some thoughts on studies and numbers

[bsdewhurst]

Additionally, there have been a small number of people who have hit three strikes, and the music industry has not pursued disconnection for those people - presumably because pursuing it means taking it to a tribunal which might actually require evidence of infringement.

Good point, I would like to add for those not familiar with the NZ law, if you get to three strikes and the right holders don't take you to the copyright tribunal within a set amount of time (2 or 3 months I think) the earlier strikes are thrown out and the user goes back to the start of the process, basically a use it or lose situation for the rights holders, don't accuse someone unless you are prepared to back it up.

Hit em where it hurts...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Create original content - anything at all. Could be text. Load it with keywords that would attract NZ govt clicks. Minister's names, etc.
2. Put it on the web
3. Have a click-through license that says something to the effect of "free license granted to all people worldwide, except for citizens of NZ employed by the government"
4. Log all accessing IPs, match to list of NZ govt IPs.
5. Send infringement notices as necessary. Once you've sent a few, post publicly, send to a few blogs, and CC to the press.

Re:Hit em where it hurts...

[viperidaenz]

And then be laughed at. The law only targets peer-to-peer file sharing. Unless you can convince an MP or such to download it as a torrent and seed it your infringement notices will be a waste of $20.

Re:Hit em where it hurts...

[Kalriath]

I'm sure Melissa Lee could put it on a CD for you. It was all legally obtained after all!

Re:Hit em where it hurts...

[bsdewhurst]

The law only targets peer-to-peer file sharing.

For extra fun downloading from a server is not covered by this law so downloading a movie using bit torrent could get you a strike but downloading from megaupload wouldn't. Hmmm, co-incidence?

Re:Hit em where it hurts...

[viperidaenz]

The difference is which side is doing to "offering". In a peer to peer system all users who are downloading a file are also offering it to others. In a client-server system it is only the server doing to offering. It's hard to justify saying the client is the one infringing. Peer to peer, everyone is "guilty"

I'm sure the Kiwis discovered VPNs...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that a good number of New Zealanders are now using VPN services now, likely offshore.

Is this a victory for the copyright people? Nope. The steps they have to take next are to force ISPs to block VPNs (which likely violates free speech laws), demand VPNs offer IP address mappings by request (fat chance, especially in another country), or pass a law requiring all Internet facing endpoints have a DRM stack which notifies a central authority if it is tampered with, similar to XBL.

Real police work is now severely screwed by this. Now that the pirates are now running black pipes, the child pornographers will follow suit, so the real crimes against people will not be able to be detected, when before the Draconian copyright laws, it was a matter of sitting back and running a utility like Splunk on packet headers.

Not the full picture!

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's true that P2P traffic has decreased in NZ after the law, the tunneling traffic has increased. See bellow:
http://www.matthewtaylor.co.nz/2012/03/11/three-strikes-law-shifted-file-sharing-from-torrents-to-tunnels/
http://www.wand.net.nz/sites/default/files/nznog12_0.pdf :)

How to measure Success ?

[bug1]

Media cartels judging if their 3-strikes approach is successful based on how many people they punish. Someone needs to remind them that their job is to promote the sale of music/movies.

If they paired their research on punishment, with data on legal sales then it might be meaningful, as it stands its just a scare story.

I like the part

[viperidaenz]

Where Rianz and co say the fee should be dropped from $20 per notice to $2 or less and the ISPs countering that with the largest saying it should cost over $1000 per notice, as they have spend half a million dollars complying.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Local retailers are reporting massive jump in sales for Music, Movie and DVD - yeah right!

cue the zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue the zealots claiming that this is why people disagree with them because this is an easy way to categorize people as "different" and "blind" so that they can be considered "other" than the group and therefore minimized, ignored and mistreated. Instead of recognizing that all people have views for reasons

Re:cue the zealots

[Anonymous Coward]

gah! wrong threat! WTF slashdot! I click one thread and post on another?!?

3 Strikes?

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't play baseball in NZ, we play cricket. Of course its winter now so we play rugby (Union or League, take your pick)

Probably shifted to alternatives

[jonwil]

If you want music for your collection, YouTube + one of the many YouTube to MP3 options is one way to get a specific song that their anti-piracy detection methods probably cant pick up.
That or downloading from any number of websites offering music for download (including file sharing sites)

For movies & TV, if you want to watch something once (and dont care so much about the quality) YouTube is a good way to do it if you can find a copy. If YouTube doesn't have it, plenty of other video sites that probably do...

Plenty of options that dont involve using P2P software to download mainstream content (although I wish YouTube would do more about the people who upload the dodgy videos saying "we cant upload this film to YouTube because its been blocked but go to dodgyvideosite.com to watch it" with a link to some dodgy scam site)

Re:Probably shifted to alternatives

[sqrt(2)]

I think YouTube audio is something like 64kbps highly compressed MP3 so it's even lower quality than even the worst torrents you'll find. Same with ripping from streams like Pandora or Spotify, it's usually radio quality. That used to be acceptable but today with lossless codecs and cheap storage in the terabytes there's no reason to put up with low bitrates.

Direct download sites (I like filestube which searches many of them from one place) are the best option if you are worried about getting caught using BitTorrent.

Re:Probably shifted to alternatives

[ThatsMyNick]

Youtube bitrate rate depends on the video bitrate you choose. I use a plugin to force all videos to start with 720p, which has an audio bit rate of 256 kpbs. Of course, the original upload may have been of lesser bitrate, and youtube simply upscaled it. Hence I only use the official videos from vevo, etc.

Grumpy

[ANonyMouser]

This law was introduced as a one strike(!) law with no fees(!!!!!!!) by the major left wing party government of the day. The same politicians tried to undermine the (now in government) major right wing party by accusing them of implementing laws at the directive of American interests. Of course that right wing party eventually passed the watered down version that we now have in place. You just can't win with politics. I'm sorry but as a NZer, the whole thing to me just stinks. The appropriate insult in the local vernacular: the bloody mongrels! Honestly, I'm not a protester. There are many of those and I don't identify at all. However, this issue is nearly enough for me to vocalise my feelings. Defend your content rights by all means, but do it honestly. You wont convince me that the NZ film and TV industry is not worth the amount claimed: nearly the size of the NZ economy, as I've seen on posters in video shops. When I see that sort of thing, I just don't go in to spend my money. Good on Sky TV for making content available online ASAP after initial screenings overseas. I hope they expand this and others follow suit.

That's not the only fix

[chebucto]

The problem is that 40% of the people are breaking the law as it is written.

There are two basic ways of solving this:
- Punish 40% of New Zealanders, or
- Change the laws

Methinks the second option deserves more consideration

Re:That's not the only fix

[nzac]

Whats the percentage for speeding, especially in the non enforced zone (4 to 10 above the limit).
The law is similar to the speeding law, the majority breaks it, but tolerate the law to keep the problem under control.

First no one expects massive fines for this that 15,000 max fine is for more than just torrenting for personal usage, it will be much closer to the 250 minimum. Again this is like speeding. The main threat is you get your internet/drivers license taken away.

Its the system the rights holders want but the numbers are an order of magnitude wrong. My understanding is this law is to be trade treaty compliant but useless.

Halves huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

More like 50% of infringes were the smarter ones who are now using vpn's.

Streaming is the new torrenting

[MadAndy]

I live in NZ, and a quote I heard on the radio lately says it all: "streaming is the new torrenting". Instead of torrenting you connect to one of the indexing sites and simply stream what you want to watch. That's what we do now. Not only does it use less data allowance, but as far as I know it's actually legal too, as you're not offering a copy to anyone else.

About the only hassle is the stupid ads, and some of the sites stream data to you too slowly to watch in real time. We've gotten in the habit of kicking those off at night and running hobocopy to copy the stream files from Temp inside my profile folder. Then VLC plays 'em whenever I like :)

And music? There are indexing sites for that too. We really did try to go legit there, but with all the region restrictions and limited catalog rubbish it was such a pain in the ass. The indexing sites have it all...

Sure

[rainer_d]

Maybe because Kim Dotcom has been imprisoned for some time and couldn't download himself.

Now that he's out again and online, I'm sure he'll skew that statistic just like every other statistic....
;-)

Funny numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the quote: "Forty-one per cent of New Zealand internet users accessed such "copyright infringing services online" in February, compared to a global average of 28 per cent, it said." Both of those numbers are ridiculous. The 41% includes legitimate P2P, and the 28% global average presumably includes countries like Ghana that aren't exactly an apple-to-apples comparison.

Shocked, shocked!

[Black Parrot]

The haves wanting more, whodathoughtit.

They won't be happy until...

[sparkeyjames]

they are the judge jury and executioner for anyone caught stealing or purported to be stealing their
precious IP. The sad thing is is that politicians will let them do so because they are just as corrupt as
those doing the bribery.

Re:They won't be happy until...

[shentino]

And the corrupt ones are the only ones who can get into office in the first place, thanks to the winner take all system that rewards people for selling their souls to the corporate sector in exchange for campaign funds and air time on corporate owned media.

...or

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe it just doubled the use of encryption.

More likely 40% started to run Peerblock

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a few firewall like setups that prevent you from sending data to any IP registered to an infringement logger. If you start running a few safety protocols, you can certainly reduce your levels of being caught. Though that's hardly something very amazing.

Re:Pandora is 192k mp3

[Anonymous Coward]

Pandora is 192k mp3 which while not the highest quality is pretty decent.

Halves infringement?

[Eyeball97]

I'd like to see the ISPs MRTG graphs, in support of this claim. In theory, they should also have seen a very significant drop in traffic.

Otherwise, "Three strikes law in NZ doubles the number of people switching to Usenet, or using TOR, or other methods" might be more accurate...

Reminds me of Brein

[SmallFurryCreature]

Brein is the music mafiaa in Holland where they forced a ban on thepiratebay.org. They then claimed this worked and reduced piracy. The ISP then said they could see no reduction in network traffic, neither has there been an increase in online purchases. Now, I am willing to entertain the thought that Ziggo (ISP) is lying but KPN? Their network engineers are the kind who drive volvo's. They can't lie, it does not fit in their world.

But Brein lying? I can't even conceive of the idea of them telling the truth.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

boycott

[harvey the nerd]

We will shift further away from full paid, new release entertainment even if we have to mine the 20th century in audio and black and white entertainment. We will not subsidize fascism. Turned off the cable TV racket 7-8 years ago.

I'm surprised as a recent infringer

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in New Zealand. I watched this bill come up, and its predecessor. I learned what I could about each and educated anybody who brought up the subject as best I could.
I spoke to proprietors of local businesses and explained to them how this sort of law could impact on their bottom line. Believe me, it can.

I was disappointed and unsurprised when the skynet bill became law. "Piracy" of "IP" is theft. It is illegal. But the skynet law is an answer to the wrong question and brongs a presumption of guilt. And it all comes back to "who was billed for the ip?"

Now... posting as an AC because I've never registered on slashdot.

I believe that if something is worth having, it's worth paying for. Thay's why I donate to OSS projects that I tink could use it. It's why I always used to love the satisfaction of buying a REAL CD when I wanted new music. It's why I pay my lastfm subscription. It's why I've for years taken great pride in having NO unlicensed software on my computer. We all deserve to be able to say what someone may or may not do with our creations.

But the skynet law is objectionable and is a call to civil disobedience. Which is why I have, since its passing, taken to stealing any movie I can't afford, can't find, or on a bad day, can't be bothered paying for. They are trying to punish me whether I steal or not, so I may as well just do it. isn't that the whole point of the three strikes law? To turn me into a crook?

And yet, after all these gigabytes... where are my infringement notices? The law has increased my (non-p2p) piracy 100%, but the detection rate is still zero. I can't be the only one.

I've downloaded a LOT of cars.

Democracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

So after file sharing halved, there are still 40% that do it. That means it started at about 80% of the population file sharing. Pretty much an absolute majority for anything democratic/political or anything really.
So how the hell did this thing get through??

Re:Democracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Labor bent over for special interests.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The most stupid thing about this whole business.

[Anonymous Coward]

The most stupid thing about this whole business is the big push to get super speedy broadband rolled out around New Zealand. It's going to cost $100 Trillion or something stupid, to lay fiber to every door in the country (excluding RDs, you still will have to use Woosh (wireless)).

So. What do they think people intend to use this new ultra fast broadband for??

Skyping Grandma?

Downloading halved or rendered invisible?

[HuguesT]

Absent sufficient details on the methodology used, one would have to question the conclusion.

Either Kiwis effectively are downloading less, or they have found better ways to download files more invisibly.

You are confused

[Mathinker]

Seems to me that you flunked Eco 101.

> They need the commodity to be artificially scarce

Scarcity does not necessarily equate to value --- for example, samples of my urine from a particular morning are very scarce, but are unlikely to have any real value (and not totally because they are urine: I'm sure I could get hundreds or even perhaps thousands of dollars from some national intelligence agency for a fresh sample of Ali Khamenei's urine).

I'm not even sure that scarcity is even a necessary condition for value.

Anyway, as others have already stated here, the IP cartels are just doing it wrong. They have become addicted to a particular business model where they can manipulate the public to give their product value, and the viability of this model is vanishing like sand through the hourglass, even as I type.

Mr. President

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

If you can't blog, tweet. If you can't tweet, like. But by all means, keep sharing.

Ingenius KimDotKom Video/Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MokNvbiRqCM

Now excuse me, I'm off to fight CETA.

subject

[Legion303]

"rights holders reckon it halved the number of infringements in the first month."

CORRECTION: half of your prior offenders got sneakier.

reckon = data?

[Anonymous Coward]

They reckon? I they reckon twice...does it then become data? Guessing, they are guessing.

"Pennies" won't work ...

[Anonymous Coward]

> or even pennies

NZ uses Dollars and CENTS. No pennies since 1967 ...

Yep, your right on here.

[helios17]

I haven't torrented anything in a long time. With sites such as fastpasstv.ms, I can watch the TV programs I usually watch without the hassle of DVR or worrying about being home in time to catch it in real time on TV. Since I despise commercials more than anything else, Fastpasstv has given me options I never had before. As well, when traffic congestion and buffering become a problem, browser extensions like Video Downloadhelper allow me to download the file in flv format and watch it at my convenience and without the stuttering. As for music, I am an old fart and hopelessly lost in the 60's and 70's. I ahem....obtained all the music I care to listen to years ago. I haven't heard anything since the mid 90's that I would consider worthy of my consumer dollar anyway. Yep, the offshore sites like Fastpasstv are hard to shutdown as well. They've been hit and have moved twice in the past year I believe but it only takes them 72 hours to get up and running again. So maybe NZ might have seen a substantial decrease in "pirate traffic", but then again, people who lose their access to entertainment will immediately seek alternatives. I think this is probably what happened...they just switched the way they do it.

Have they 'struck out' anyone yet?

[Meski]

And how did that go? Or is it in the courts?

Not just rights holders - An actual academic says:

[StueyNZ]

According to http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/7338332/File-sharing-has-dropped-researcher-says/ today, Waikato university academic has actually measured difference in traffic levels pre- and post- implementation of the 'SkyNet' law.

And have sales gone up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or down?