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Piracy The Courts Your Rights Online

New Zealand Three-Strikes Law To Be Tested 77

Posted by timothy from the hanged-by-the-neck-until-cranky dept.
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."
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New Zealand Three-Strikes Law To Be Tested More

New Zealand Three-Strikes Law To Be Tested

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  • That's about the size of it (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12, 2013 @03:09AM (#42565807)

    "the law was financed and pushed by the United States"
    New Zealand, control those music listeners, or we send in the marines.

    • Re:That's about the size of it (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 88Seconds ( 242800 ) on Saturday January 12, 2013 @04:44AM (#42566087)

      "the law was financed and pushed by the United States"

      and pushed through on the back of legislation for assisting those affected by the Christchurch earthquake. So anyone opposing this bit of the bill would also be denying help to those who really needed it.

      • and pushed through on the back of legislation for assisting those affected by the Christchurch earthquake

        link? there are no riders in NZ..

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Here are some details about the circumstances under which the law was passed [tvnz.co.nz]

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The were passed under urgency, using legislation to try and get earthquake stuff sorted. It was incredibly corrupt, and both Labour and National signed it.

          In fact it was Labour who started this law, and Clare Curran is getting a few free trips to LA to "give her a new respect for intellectual property". National diluted it slightly, but every politician is an absolute evil piece of shit for making this law.

    • "the law was financed and pushed by the United States"

      Heaven forbid the Kiwis take responsibility for the laws they enact...

      The guilty party is the government for trading legislation for favors/money/etc.

      (yes, Americans should also take responsibility for the laws they enact instead of blaming corporations)

  • Sort of one sided isn't it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thogard ( 43403 ) on Saturday January 12, 2013 @03:22AM (#42565861) Homepage

    They have several images on their web site that count as "derived works" of my work under US copyright law and they haven't payed me anything.

    Can I send them 3 take down notices and then pull their internet access and get them fined $15,000?

    • Go for it! Clicky-linky for the derived images and your original works would be appreciated! I wish you could indeed get paid, however they have not set up a "streamlined process" for the likes of you or me, have they? Best wishes.
    • Yes you can, and speaking as a New Zealander, PLEASE DO SO. The more things like this happen, the more ridiculous it looks.
    • That would be great.

    • Can I send them 3 take down notices and then pull their internet access and get them fined $15,000?

      If you bring it to their attention, it wouldn't surprise me if they claim your work as theirs and get you fined $15,000...

    • Yes, but you have to do it a month apart and then you have to take them to the tribunal once you've filed the third one.

  • So, if the lady is held accountable...

    Then all a copyright owner has to do is crack into someone's wireless (or just flat out connect), download a bunch of their own copyrighted work, and then sue them for copyright infringement.

    Whoo loopholes!

    • Re:Easy Money (Score:5, Informative)

      by nzac ( 1822298 ) on Saturday January 12, 2013 @04:00AM (#42565991)

      This is New Zealand its not going to be the maximum fine or probably even an order of magnitude less. They will likely not recoup the costs to get it there.
      Last fines RIANZ tried to push were based on figures based on the damage it cause. The only way for to them get 3 MP3 downloads into the 3 figure mark was to try to argue that they were shared 90 times (would like to know how they got this figure) and then triple it (at least this is what they tried to do to the last distort person before it was thrown out).

      As long as it stays tied to real damages NZs fines will not make it to the 500 dollar mark, covering the 250 or so in court fees to get it there in the first place. Internet is too expensive here to seed.

      • Tell me about it. I stop seeding as soon as I finish my torrents. Suck on my bandwidth caps Linux distro peers!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kijori ( 897770 )

      Yes, as with absolutely any type of lawsuit it is possible for a claimant to frame a defendant. They could equally crack their wireless and post defamatory statements about themselves or drop their belongings in the person's shopping bag. This is the reason that perjury is a serious criminal offence that renders a person liable to a lengthy period of imprisonment.

    • Which is an angle the defence lawyer should be playing. There's so much "reasonable doubt" involved in a case like this that if it goes before a jury there's a good chance they'll acquit.
      • Civil cases don't need reasonable doubt, just balance of evidence. These kinds of cases are about who's got deeper pockets.

      • Cases are heard by the Copyright Tribunal, not a court. There are no peers to judge.

  • We just threatened them with no more Hobbitses...

    So what comes after the Hobbit? Snow White as JRR Tolkien would have written it?

    • Nothing. Tolkien only wrote the three classic-format stories. He loved building worlds - everything else he did on middle earth is a daunting mass of history books and artificial linguistics. The Silmarillion is not filmable.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm not sure the Silmarillion is even readable. I tried reading it after I read the LoTR and after struggling to get halfway through it I never picked it up again.

        But that doesn't mean you couldn't make a film or three out of it. If you can make a movie out of the game Battleships you can make a movie out of anything.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Genda ( 560240 )

          Hollywood (as run by bankers) has this unpleasant habit of beating dead horses into a frothy pink slurry. I'm certain there must some remaining bludgeoning of orcs and wizards after the Hobbit... they'll just make it up as whole clothes and anoint it with JRR Tolkien... have his family bless it for a 10% slice of the cinematic cow pie and everyone adjourns to count the proceeds.

          You can't succeed with a film anymore without 22 sequels, 11 prequels, 5 spin-offs, a documentary of the making of, and 7 video gam

  • Streamlined extortion queues (Score:5, Informative)

    by girlinatrainingbra ( 2738457 ) on Saturday January 12, 2013 @03:49AM (#42565949)
    Seems like streamlined extortion to me:
    The tribunal can make awards of up to $15,000 against pirates, and Rianz had sought awards of several thousand dollars in at least two of the dropped cases.
    In one, Rianz sought about $2700 from a Wellington student whose internet account was allegedly used without her knowledge to download five songs valued at $11.75. That case also seemed destined for a formal hearing.Fairfax NZ

    Really ridiculous to seek fines of $2700 for an acknowledged value of $11.75, at least in my eyes.

    • This varies by jurisdiction and claimant organisation, but often these groups will seek a "reasonable licence fee" on the basis of uploading - the argument being that because someone may have uploaded a file to a random person on the Internet, they need to pay for a worldwide, unlimited licence to distribute that song. Although being generous, sometimes they limit that a bit.

      From what I've seen, courts (so far mainly in Germany) haven't bought that argument - in one German case they went with 100 uploads of

  • It should be thought-over.

  • So everybody has to do what X Corp. requires, yes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by silviuc ( 676999 ) on Saturday January 12, 2013 @04:46AM (#42566097) Homepage

    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.

    • Just a matter of time. They cannot win the copyright wars.

    • 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.

      The corporations want you to keep blaming them, because that way the people that are selling legislation and influence can continue to sell legislation and influence to them.

      I cannot believe that so many people dont get it, and convince themselves that blaming the people that arent in control is somehow the correct way to operate their protest.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by silviuc ( 676999 )
        Actually it's exactly the big corps that have the legislators in their pockets. Both are to blame for the mess they have created

        • Actually it's exactly the big corps that have the legislators in their pockets.

          Its thinking like this that prevents anything from being done about it. The corporations don't hold the keys, the politicians do. The politicians are on control, and all by themselves sell the fruits of that control to corporations. Nobody is forcing them to. They do it willingly. Get it? They are fucking you willingly, for their own benefit.

      • Car analogy:

        A passenger gets into a taxi cab and offers money to the the driver to drive to a specific destination.

        Everyone agrees that the taxi driver is still ultimately in control, that the passenger is just making an offer for services. So too, the politicians are ultimately in control, that the corporations are just making an offer for services.

        If the cab driver absolutely refused to drive to a specific location, then the cab would never go to that location no matter how many times the passenger

    • 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.

      I'm not sure that "US based" is a particularly meaningful distinction.

      Anyone around the world can buy stock in corporations, and where the corporation technically has it's home may have little to do with who is really pulling the strings.

      There are many individuals and organizations around the world with vast amounts of wealth, and it would be more reasonable to suppose that these wealthy individuals, or the individuals in charge of these wealthy organizations, collectively control the behavior of the major

  • You pay for a pipe. What you do with that pipe is up to you. No one should be able to prevent you from using your pipe. I don't see file downloads as causing the kind of public safety concern that might require the provider to disconnect someone's service. It's a stretch. If the provider disconnects the pipe, they are liable for damages, especially if you were using it to conduct business. They do so at their own peril.

  • I have a simple solution to bring the entire Hollywood movie industry to its feet: don't watch any more movies. Let them create blockbusters. Let them show them at the movies. You ... you don't go to the movies. You don't spend your hard earned money on those expensive tickets to watch those movies. You don't help those Hollywood studios become rich enough and big enough to fund such stupid laws. When you stop watching those movies, and when you keep your hard earned money to yourself, you will bring those

  • Years ago, New Zealand barred U.S. warships which may carry nuclear weapons from docking in their ports. As an American this kind of miffed me. Since without the U.S. they would now all be speaking Japanese. But now, to kotow to corporate bullies and arrest and charge some simple schumck who failed to deploy U.S. DIA level encryption on their wifi network and charge them with "piracy", is pure "wimp-assed" policy. Even though I disagreed with your nuclear weapons carrying warship policy, at least I had to a

    • Years ago, New Zealand barred U.S. warships which may carry nuclear weapons from docking in their ports. As an American this kind of miffed me. Since without the U.S. they would now all be speaking Japanese.

      And Americans wonder why no-one likes them. "Change your laws for us because we saved you in WWII". Despite the fact that America only got involved because Japan bombed Pearl Harbour.

      The law here is quick specific: no nuclear powered ships or nuclear weapons are permitted in the country. Your warships specifically were not barred, it was simply illegal for them to dock because the US government refuses to say whether they contained nuclear weapons or not. British warships, Chinese warships, Australian w

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