New Zealand Dumps 3 Strikes Plan... For Now
from the about-time dept
After temporarily backing down from the controversial 3 strikes provision that was put into a bill in a sneaky way (after it had been rejected by legislators, the country's copyright minister simply added it back in), it looks like New Zealand has decided to start again completely. Officials in New Zealand note that no agreement was reached in the month allotted to work out a new plan, so they're going to scrap the entire provision -- and look to start over from scratch with no specific timeline in place. Hopefully, this means that when it comes to a new law, the considerations of all parties will be considered, rather than just those of the entertainment industry.
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Filed Under: new zealand, protests, three strikes
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DUH
Obviously, if you ask a criminal if he should be punished for his crimes, he's gonna say no. I mean, duh!
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Re: DUH
>"asked", isn't it? They're the bloody thieving
>pirates that's why!
Lets follow this 'logic' to it's end.
But they ask politicians and we all know they are crooks. Lawyers write the laws and they are working for clients who are all crooks so the lawyers are crooks by association. Hey the police have associations so they must be crooks too... Wasn't NZ a penal colony as well so they are all crooks...
Dried frog pill please the strain is too much.
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Re: DUH
What about innocent internet users who are accused? What comeback do they have? How will the infringers be detected? IP addresses are ridiculously easy to spoof so they should not be used as the sole piece of evidence. If a person innocent of a crime has his Internet connection severed, what compensation can he claim? If a person's connection is removed, can he then use a different ISP? How is data shared among the ISPs to prevent this from happening if not? What are the privacy and data protection liabilities? Will data be shared about non-infringers? If not, what protections will be in place to prevent this? Etc...
There's a lot more than "good guy" content owners vs. "bad guy" public in real life, even if you accept the claims of "losses" due to piracy at face value.
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Re: Re: DUH
I don't think that innocent users would get three strikes (that would suggest 3 errors on the same person). However, someone allowing the internet to be accessed through their services (say an open wireless connection) could run the risks.
In US terms, I think an IP address is sort of like probable cause. It isn't the be all and end all of information, but it would be enough to warrant checking the computer(s) attached to that IP is that IP can be shown doing certain things.
As for the question of switching ISPs, in most places (I don't know about NZ) we typically have very few true ISP choices. The phone company. The cable company. Companies using the network that belongs to either the phone company to the cable company. At best, you might get 9 - 12 total strikes before you have no way to get any more connectivity, and that assumes that there is no master blacklist.
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Re: Re: Re: DUH
I don't think that innocent users would get three strikes (that would suggest 3 errors on the same person).
Unfortunately that's your problem, you don't think. As is always the case with these rediculous laws there won't be concrete language and procedures so there will myriad ways of interpreting three strikes plus numerous loopholes. What will happen then is that some teen will upload three songs, the RIAA will send three separate notices with proof, and with the third the family will be disconnected from the internet. Go ahead now, deny that would happen, even Yosi knows better.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Actually though, we are talking about the RIAA, so what will really happen is that some teen will sit down to download his first song through a torrent. While he's downloading it, he'll unknowingly act as a seed from which three others will download. At least two of the three, possibly all, of the downloaders will be RIAA investigators. Then the family will be given their three strikes, one for each act of serving up a song.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Or there will be just some random printer that the warnings get sent to.
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Re: Re: Re: DUH
I like that analogy. However, the ISPs should simply forward said "proof" to local law enforcement. It's their job to catch, charge, convict and punish, not the ISPs.
The catch-all is, of course, all variants of the "three-strikes" rule I've read about are based on three accusations, not three proven instances. What ISP in their right mind would be willing to cut off its paying users based on someone else's say-so?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
(I don't agree with the explaination, but here it goes anyway) It's "infringement" which is civil. Local law enforcement won't handle civil.
Now having said that, it could all be resolved by making "infringing" into a criminal offence, in which case, yes, law enforcement could get involved. An IP address and related customer information would likely be enough for a search and seizure warrant, which would be much nastier than a letter from the RIAA.
I suspect if "infringement" was treated properly as theft, there wouldn't be too much more open file sharing going on. It only happens now in the open because people think they can thumb their virtual noses at "the man".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Last I checked, copyright infringement is both a civil and criminal matter. I would think the **RA would have to provide not only an IP address used but also actual proof that the infringement was occurring. "We say so" isn't remotely proof.
As far as infringement==theft... it's not theft because it doesn't deny the holder of the original work.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Infringement is not theft, it is infringement and should be treated as such.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Infringement is not theft, it is infringement and should be treated as such.
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Re: Re: Re: DUH
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Not true. Along with people being sued for online actions they didn't commit, ISPs have billed ex-customers for accounts that had been cancelled years previously. Additionally, if you cancel your account and the ISP doesn't update it's database until a new subscriber is assigned to that account, and traffic that *seems* to come from that address will be traced back to you. This is particularly important because thses suits aren't based on "incoming" traffic as you seem to imply above (Incoming traffic to an IP address can't be spoofed (you can't get someone else's traffic)) but on "out-going" traffic (no one's sued for downloading songs, just uploading).
And for a technical point of fact, you CAN recieve traffic that's not addressed to you. Windows won't let you do it be default, but it's not difficult to write a low-level app that will 'listen' to an IP or even a MAC that isn't "yours". The traffic still has to be coming down a pipe you can see, but it's possible to make an 'unconnected' IP address send and respond to traffic. joe Average won't be doing anything like this (without help), but aren't we more considred about the hardened criminals causing huge damages, not Joe Average listening to Mariah Carey singles from the '90s?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
The IP assignments (mostly dynamic) are done not through billing but through systems management. Billing has nothing to do with determining who is using an IP address on a given date. Even if it was (and it is not), there would be a duplicate for the two assigned uses and therefore it would be easy enough to figure which one is which. Unassigned IP addresses are unassigned, and there would be no traffic to them (likely dropped at the routers upstream).
As for packet sniffing, it can be done only on token ring networks or inside your own network. The only data coming down your DSL line is intended for you. Certain star configuration cable setups may still allow it, but less and less of them do it now. It s even harder to answer for that traffic. Tunnelling is possible, but honestly, if you are going to go as far as to be a hacker, well, you have more serious issues.
Most importantly, all of this is out of the technical reach of pretty much all internet users, a large percentage of which are likely still stuck trying to find the "any key" so they can continue.
Finally, it doesn't matter what joe average is listening to (he can listen to all the Mariah Carey torch songs he likes) it is more about how he got them. If he dropped a CD in and listened to it, nobody cares.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Secondly, routers aren't that smart. An upstream router doesn't known where this or that address is or who 9if anyone) is connected to it, they just pass it along to the next hop. Traffic only gets dropped when the time-to-live expires -- a computer that's connected and doesn't respond is the same as a computer that's not there as far as routers are concerned.
Packet-sniffing and associated spoofs are getting harder, but they're not completely closed off yet, and they won't be until there's a direct cable between your house and AT&T. Nevermind that there are more ways to skin a cat once you throw in wireless access points. And you're right, once you get to the point of hacking there are bigger issues than piracy; I'm glad you can recognize that fact.
Yeah, this is all out of reach of the regular user, and I said as much when I introduced Joe. But regular users didn't build Napster or write Kazaa, so I'm not sure what your point is. In the end it'll just be a double-click application regardless, no technical expertise needed.
Finally, it's not about where Joe got his music, it's where he's putting it. No one has been sued because they downloaded a song. There's no infrigement there because the whole case lies in "distribution," and you aren't distributing when you recieve.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
Yet again, you're missing the point.
The whole issue is that people DO hack networks, people DO break wireless encryption, people DO spoof IP addresses and MAC addresses.
Because people can and do perform these actions, the IP address alone is not a reliable indicator of guilt. The people who would suffer most would be home users and small/home business owners who are innocent of all charges (the latter might be forced out of business before any dispute is settled). Even that's a best-case scenario that assumes that all ISPs are competent, they all have complete records, the sys admins aren't faking logs for friends, etc. Most people in the industry can assure you that's often not the case. In other words, a lot of innocent people could potentially suffer to protect a single, failing business model.
"Most importantly, all of this is out of the technical reach of pretty much all internet users, a large percentage of which are likely still stuck trying to find the "any key" so they can continue."
Again, irrelevant. The people doing those things would not be the people who faced the consequences. If there are not significant safeguards, the guy spoofing an IP address would not be punished, but the innocent teleworker whose IP address he spoofed could lose their job after their connection is removed. You think that's acceptable?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
tunneling is not hacking, most companies have something like that set up, I have it set up so I can manage servers that operate on commonly blocked ports. anyone competent computer user could set it up if they tried, it isn't like it is hard to do.
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Re: Re: Re: DUH
Except that's not exactly what's happening. From the proposals I've seen, the ISP simply enforce the 3 strikes, they don't person the investigation. So, they're simply responding to whatever the local version of the RIAA is.
Considering the RIAA managed to attempt to sue, among many other things, a Mac user for using a Windows-only P2P application, several people who didn't even own a computer and made one lawsuit claiming a laser printer had been used for infringement, you'll forgive me for not thinking this is sufficient evidence for cutting off someone's home or business internet connection.
"In US terms, I think an IP address is sort of like probable cause."
Yet, that's often the only evidence the RIAA have during the civil lawsuits they're bringing. If the burden of proof was the same as for criminal trials, they'd be laughed out of court. This 3 strikes thing means that they can even circumvent the courts if they can get the ISP to do their enforcement for them. Not acceptable.
"As for the question of switching ISPs, in most places (I don't know about NZ) we typically have very few true ISP choices."
...which surely makes it all the more important that safeguards are put into place to prevent innocent people from being punished, surely? That's the exact reason why more than party should be coming up with the rules.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DUH
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Re: Re: Re: DUH
It doesn't matter how unlikely it is. If even one person is falsely persecuted, the law is unjust.
The problem with this system is the lack of due process, or even court involvement. It makes private industry into judge, jury, and executor. It does not allow for a defense on the part of the accused, and giving that much power to private industry is beyond frightening. Since it is based on accusations, not proven violations, what is to stop the industry from abusing its power to silence critics and/or competitors by disabling their connection to the Internet?
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If at first you don't succeed...
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Throwing away customers...
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I don't know about you guys but
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Re:
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Rediculousness of the argument
The very idea that the ISP should be involved in pretty much any way, is asinine. If I use Google Maps to figure out where all the banks are in town, and go to them and rob them, should Google be involved in tracking me down? Maybe the maker of the car since I used their make of automobile?
If I use a mobile phone to make harassing phone calls, should Nokia or AT&T have a 3 strikes policy barring me from using Nokia phones, or AT&T service?
Craziness.
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Re: Rediculousness of the argument
That might actually make sense. Though, maybe it's a bit of an over-reaction. You harrass one person, so you lose the ability to make any phone calls? I'd have to think about it more...
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Something wrong with all your arguments
You're using real logic and we're talking about the RIAA. You want to send them a message? Boycott. Nothing other than that will EVER get their attention.
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Re: Something wrong with all your arguments
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End result...
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Re: End result...
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Re: End result...
They are aiming at the soft middle. The people who would buy music, but their buddy showed them how to install limewire. They aren't intentionally stealing music, they just think it is great to get stuff for free.
If you make file sharing enough of an issue (with actual penalties that can happen to real people), those people in the soft middle are likely to say "the risk ain't worth saving a few bucks" and they stop trading music.
No, it isn't 1 less download = 1 more sale, but at some point, it stops converting paying customers into non paying leeches.
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Re: Re: End result...
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Re: Re: End result...
As for not shutting down legitimate file sharing all of the law makers and policy makers are so far behind the technology 8-ball they can't tell the difference between legitmate use and abuse.
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Not going to happen....
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We're all going to have to put up for a few decades with ignorance on these issues in government until one (maybe even two) generations of people die off.
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Everyone is hereby kicked off the intarwebs.
Have a nice day
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NZ laws on entertainment
The tail is now in firm control, and is wagging the dog.
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