Three-Strikes Copyright Law In NZ Halves Infringement 202
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."
Not anymore. (Score:2, Informative)
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:Pays to Be Sneaky (Score:5, Informative)
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:Not anymore. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not anymore. (Score:4, Informative)
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."
Not the full picture! (Score:2, Informative)
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
Re:Begpardon? (Score:4, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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 [wikipedia.org] 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.