1st Strikes Issued Under New Zealand Anti-Piracy Laws 123
Master Moose writes "New Zealand's largest ISPs confirmed yesterday that they had received their first notices under the government's new copyright regime, which came into effect on September 1. All the notices received so far appear to be from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand. Telecom, for example, received 42 notices — 35 for alleged download of songs by R&B star Rihanna, six for Lady Gaga tunes and one for British recording artist Taio Cruz. Curiously, it was the music industry, rather than the movie industry, that fired the first shot. It was believed the Motion Picture Association was keen to go after copyright infringers."
Re:Thanks ICE (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way people won't put up with this crap is if everyone (not literally, but enough) to overwhelm the system into being incapable of stopping it. In a democratic society, if everyone broke the law, then not would the law fall under that it is not the will of the people anymore?
Re:Thanks for the list of artists to boycott (Score:4, Interesting)
Google Sam Tsui, or Kurt Hugo-Schneider. Easily the most talented singer sI've heard in a while. While I couldn't find any information on their income, they appear to have made music their full-time job and obviously have enough money to buy expensive cameras and drum kits and the like.
You can make money without a record label. The book linked in my sig is now finished, undergoing the last few revisions before I put it to the Kindle store. I'm not expecting it to be the next Star Wars, but the point is, the barrier to entry is very low.
Record labels, publishing companies, other 'talent aggregators'... are now essentially obsolete.
Re:Thanks ICE (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone (not literally, but enough) is already breaking the law. That doesn't do anything to get laws overturned. That only works if everyone is also held to the law (sued/arrested/fined/etc). Ex - speeding. Damn near EVERYONE speeds, but that hasn't done a damn thing to get rid of that law. They just limit how many people they ticket to socially acceptable level.
I think there is another option, and believe it's time will come. Going back to the car analogy, this would be like filming the cops that are always filming us...
* Share non-RIAA artists' music (doesn't matter who does this)
* Log downloading/uploading IP's via a bunch of clients (bittorrent)
* Watch for RIAA related IP's (them, or the hired lapdogs that do their work)
* Have non-RIAA artist sue the RIAA for copyright infringement under the same laws they use. (or have them sign over their management of their "IP" to your organization)
Do this enough, and it won't be profitable for the RIAA to do their tracking/monitoring/prosecuting of the P2P networks. That's how they're finding people right now - by joining the same P2P share, and watching for the IP's the upload parts of the content to them. This would make a great EFF or similar project.
It would take very little to pull this off. There are fairly small companies doing this for the RIAA already. Just do the same for non-members but only sue the RIAA related people. Those non-RIAA artists would also benefit from an RIAA with reduced power and influence, as they'd be more likely to be seen and distributed in mainstream places.
If the claim is made that you are targeting them and not protecting your "IP" from all the other downloaders, there is already a precedent set for that - the RIANZ, in this case, is only suing a handful of people... and there were certainly many others they saw while doing their tracking. Ditto on the relatively small number of RIAA suits in USA versus the number of people downloading/uploading.
The other possible outcome would be that the precedent is set such that, if one is doing this kind of monitoring/prosecuting, they must do it to all offenders that they ID. That would actually be great because a HUGE carpet bomb of claims to LOTS of people would have to be sent out by the RIAA and, while that might scare a lot of people, there are going to be FAR FAR FAR more people that are horribly pissed off by it, including many people in power positions. That shit would end quick.
One disclaimer - I don't believe in violating copyright and do not endorse it, but I do believe there are fair use situations (sharing a song with a couple friends; getting a drm-free copy of content you already purchased; format shifting (downloading a vhs rip of a vhs you already own)) that are perfectly acceptable (though possibly illegal).
Live in NZ and ... it's no big deal (fortunately). (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't count the list of other ways to pirate movies and music, many much less traceable, and can confirm that people have indeed switched to these, if were not using them already.
Add to that it's only three strikes PER rightsholder, and each warning expires after 9 months. As an IT guy when people are asking for my advice, I say if your not downloading much, your downloading obscure shit and not whatever the most popular Miley Cryus torrent is on some public tracker, your very unlikely to get a notice, and when you do, just avoid that rightsholder till the notice expires.
Also if the rights-holder has no history of suing anyone, your even more unlikely to get a notice. NZ also being small fry economically, it's also not terrible lucrative to go after pirates.
By shear fortunate accident of incompetent lawmaking, it's rather neutered and not causing a huge problem... yet. It could have been worse. The whole guilt on accusation is a stilly bit shitty of course. NZers have a way of duly igorning BS laws and carrying on doing what they do.
But I worry, NZ has lost it's testicular fortitude of late. In the 80s the French showed up in the south pacific wanting to test nuclear weapons, even 3000km from New Zealand, the response from NZ was strong and we ultimately suggested an alternate location they could shove their bombs. Hence NZ passing Nuclear-Free laws. If we still had stones like that, we would have told the foreign corporates somewhere dark to keep their law, and perhaps passed a law making piracy all but legal. Shame.
We'll get rid of this stupid law when we grow some stones back.