New Zealand Three-Strikes Law To Be Tested 77
Dangerous_Minds writes "Next month, tribunals will begin for the first people receiving their third strikes in the New Zealand 'Three Strikes Law.' In all, 11 people will have their cases heard, including one who said that her connection was used without her knowledge. Freezenet notes that there has been a long history of controversy for the law from the Internet blackout protests of 2008 to the cablegate leak which revealed that the law was financed and pushed by the United States."
Re:The obvious question here.... (Score:5, Insightful)
By being sued for illegal downloads she knows she did not do herself?
Re:The obvious question here.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well if she is certain she did not do the download then
a) Either they have made an error [mis identified user / mis identified file]
b) Someone else used her connection
- This could be figured out in a number of ways such as (proving it could be a different matter)
- time of access (she was not home or away)
- software platform used to download [maybe she is an OSx user and it was a Windows app?]
- logs on her router showing different MAC addresses have connected
So everybody has to do what X Corp. requires, yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is appalling how corporations, mostly US based, have managed to get everybody working to protect their interests. Ofc, they could not have done that alone, they have the US Gov that throws its weight around if need arises. They basically have every police dept. working to enforce copyright/DMCA and whatever else they cook up. This might be all fine and dandy if those corporations would bother to pay taxes in the countries they do business in. As it turns out, most of the time, they manage to skip paying them. So we, the citizens, pay taxes to keep police depts that enforce laws for entities that pay nothing in return. Meanwhile, serious crimes do not get solved because there is "personnel shortage". I would love to see how much countries spend per month or year on "defending" copyright and how much they copyright holders paid in taxes for the service.
While I do not approve piracy, I certainly enjoy reading how another attempt to down the piratebay has failed.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The obvious question here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
This makes for good reading http://lawgeeknz.posterous.com/nzs-copyright-proposal-guilty-until-you-prove [posterous.com]
The form of an infringement notice is to be prescribed by regulation. However, the fact that the form is correctly completed is not relevant to the issue of whether or not there has been copyright infringement. So that does not explain why the mere filing of a notice should be conclusive evidence.
Merely CORRECTLY filling out a complaint notice, is deemed sufficient evidence that an offense occurred if it goes to a tribunal
To put it another way, if someone accused me of downloading X song on Y day, and i didn't, i still have yet to find anyone who can show me a way to prove i didn't
Example:"Sir, you are accused of downloading one mp3 titled 'Justin Bieber - Baby', please prove you didn't if you wish to defend yourself"
Um.... /pass??