Recording Industry, Politicians Continue To Give Bogus Reasons To Support 3 Strikes In New Zealand
from the doesn't-anyone-call-them-on-this-crap? dept
Lawrence D'Oliveiro continues to keep us informed on the more ridiculous aspects of the push by both the recording industry and certain politicians in New Zealand to push through that country's highly controversial policy to cut off file sharers based on accusations rather than actual convictions for file sharing. First up is that the country's Prime Minister appears to be flat-out lying when he claims that New Zealand has to implement such a plan to remain in compliance with international obligations. That's simply not true. He claims that other countries, like Australia and the UK have already implemented similar plans, but that's also not true. Both countries have considered such a plan, but the UK, for instance, has already said that it will not require ISPs to cut anyone off the internet. To claim that New Zealand has to do so or that other countries have already agreed to the same thing is simply untrue.Even more disturbing, though, is how the recording industry is pushing back against complaints from ISPs in the ongoing "negotiations" around this bill. Computerworld New Zealand has a leaked memo from the RIANZ, the RIAA's New Zealand wing. In it, the industry complains that it's not reasonable to allow those accused of file sharing to have more than five days to file a counter-notice to fight back against bogus accusations of file sharing. The RIANZ whines that this would allow file sharers to prevent being cut off from the internet. It makes it clear that it thinks the process from notification to getting cut off should be as short as is possible. Apparently, the recording industry isn't a fan of due process.
Then, apparently with a straight face, the RIANZ claims that the evidence it presents to ISPs is "highly reliable, well-tested and accepted worldwide." Tell that to all of the folks who have been falsely accused of file sharing because the evidence is not reliable, not well-tested and hardly accepted worldwide (in fact, US courts have increasingly questioned the weak evidence presented by the industry). The RIANZ also seems to claim that the three strikes policy is a "standard followed in other countries." That sounds nice, aside from the fact that no countries have actually approved such a law. Oh, right, also the RIANZ is upset that ISPs think that it should have to pay the costs associated with sending these notices. So, the recording industry doesn't want to pay the costs, doesn't want to give users much time to respond and is lying about what other countries are doing and the quality of its evidence. And New Zealand politicians are buying it.
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Filed Under: new zealand, protests, three strikes
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There fixed it for you....
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Re:
Yes, I believe you are quite right; water is wet and the sky most assuredly is blue.
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Correction
A slight correction: "And New Zealand politicians are being paid to buy it."
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resist.
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Worrisome
A funny thing I saw on Twitter the other day was: Politicians need to wear NASCAR like suites so they can advertise what corporation they are funded by. Wouldn't that be nice.
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Unintended Consequences
Find someone with a legitimate copyright on something, then the day after the bill is signed, start lobbing accusations of sharing at all the politicians and industry types.
Three days later all the people who want this law are now facing mandatory banning from the net and their corporate ISPs have to unplug their businesses.
Once they are all off-line, we can go back to not worrying about it since they can't see what's going on anyway...
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Funny...
R-NAZI
Which can be argued of their tactics.
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sad part?
every law must be signed by this individual.
so, you know, someone IS supposed to call them on this.
too bad no GG of NZ has ever refused to sign legislation presented by parliament, basically rubber stamps ministry appointments, and so on.
hell, our LAST GG [pretty sure it was the last one] was a republican :S [literally, not American political party.] HOW a republican is expected to represent the interests of a Monarch properly, i don't know.
thing is, no one wants to cause a 'constitutional crisis' by rocking the boat and actually, you know, following the constitution. [such as it is. we don't have a specific single document for that :S. oh, and the entrenching law which means such things can't be repealed? doesn't apply to itself]
closest we ever came to something like that was in WW1 when the GG OFFERED to make something an order in their role as leader of the armed forces so that the PM wouldn't have to worry about the political fall out of a particular decision. turned down, natch.
the Crazy thing about this whole situation is who opposes it. looking at our political blog space, it's interesting to note the people who are on the same side in this. whaleoil and NewZblog [or at least contributors there to], for example. these guys HATE each other... last i checked, anyway.
there's a reasonably long history of our government, both national and labour, doing stupid, stupid things in the pursuit of free trade deals, often with no conceivable gain for the long term for NZ... and of the governments of other countries, especially the USA, dangling very vague hints that if they do thing x, they Might get one...
what really sadens me is that, a long time back, some entity in the music industry, i forget who it was exactly, went up against TVNZ [state owned broadcaster, last i checked], objecting to, of all things, music videos. TVNZ won, quite handily, and it never went near the courts or parliament. the loss of advertising from that free distribution dented them that badly, that quickly.
i suspect, that if they ever find an Effective way to shut down the illegal sharing of such, something similar will happen quite quickly.
so it's almost too bad they won't.
ok, epic length post here. i may have some details wrong, of course. standard disclaimer: don't think I'm right? Do think I'm right? look it up yourself.
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RIANZ's View
Here’s the Chief Executive of the RIANZ:
and:
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