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."
Streamlined extortion queues (Score:5, Informative)
Really ridiculous to seek fines of $2700 for an acknowledged value of $11.75, at least in my eyes.
Re:Easy Money (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:The obvious question here.... (Score:5, Informative)
NZ law specifically written with sponsorship from the MPAA/RIAA (about $1m NZD) and is written so that the account holder is fully the responsible party, even at say a school, library, starbucks, etc
Re:3 Strikes (Score:5, Informative)
I send a "fuck you" to every ISP on the planet, you couldn't wipe your own ass without being told to
Don't tar them all with the same brush, iiNet in Australia has been doing great things championing the rights of the user.