New Zealand Reintroduces 3 Strikes Law

An anonymous reader writes "The New Zealand government has reintroduced a newly rewritten addition to the Copyright Act which will allow rights' holders to send copyright notices to ISPs, and force them to pass them on to account holders. Section 92A of the Copyright Act will allow rights holders to take people who have been identified as infringers more than three times in front of a Copyright Tribunal. This law will allow the Copyright Tribunal to hand down either a $15,000 fine or six months internet disconnection. The law specifies that the account holder himself is responsible for what is downloaded via the account, and doesn't make allowances for identifying the actual copyright infringer if there are multiple computers tied to an account."

Aw, piss.

[adolf]

There goes any hope of migrating to New Zealand once I become financially independent.

$15,000NZ is just the maximum

[NimbleSquirrel]

Actually the $15,000NZ and the six month disconnection are just the maximums the Copyright Tribunal can hand down. The summary makes it seem like they are the default judgements: they aren't. Rights holders will need to prove that they were damaged severly to get awarded this. Really, the maximum penalty of $15,000NZ for effectively three infringements is tiny compared to judgements in the US against people like Jammie Thomas.

As much as I despise three strikes laws like this, at least this legislation has judicial oversight and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. As I understand, there will be a fee associated fo lodging and infringement notice, so it won't be a free for all for the MPAA or RIAA (or their NZ counterparts). However, penalties for false notices haven't been addressed yet, although organisations like the Creative Freedom Foundation [creativefreedom.org.nz] are pushing to have this addressed before it becomes law.

Re:I don't know about that..

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that they weren't able to use the word "breasts" in THAT article, to me, implies that New Zeeland is a completely fucked up place.

The link is ".co.uk" so you've obviously got the wrong country, mate.

Re:Aw, piss.

[Smegly]

Oh don't worry. THEY will lobby/bribe 3 strikes laws into existence pretty much everywhere.

Know your enemy. "THEY" are the International Intelectual Property Alliance (IIPA) [iipa.com], and they have the full political clout [ustr.gov] of the US government behind them - working to subvert democratic process in just about every country in the world [iipa.com] via three strikes/no presumption of innocence for the sheeple. As one small example of many, check out their recent "report" on Spain [iipa.com]. Witness the resulting [expatica.com] political clout [latimes.com] and of course, the result they were after with local laws against P2P [slashdot.org]. Spain is the 8th largest economy in the world - not so easy to boss around if unwilling to cooperate. UK, France appear to be more than happy to bend over for IIPA without any fight - at least Spain managed to keep judicial process in the loop, for now at least.
All of it does not bode well for tiny countries like NZ that do not stand much chance against combined international coercion from the "IIPA Club".

Re:Aw, piss.

[Smegly]

P.S Here is the motivation behind this law, it was a done deal at least by March 4, 2009. From the Lions mouth (under New Zealand) [iipa.com]: "IIPA testifies in support of the initiation of negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA) with Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam." PDF Link [iipa.com].
So there you go. This is at least part of the entry fee NZ used for this trade agreement. What coercion did IIPA use on Singapore, Chile, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam? Check for yourself if you dare... but don't expect anything pretty.

Re:Aw, piss.

[Smegly]

"IIPA testifies in support of the initiation of negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP FTA) with Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei Darussalam, Australia, Peru and Vietnam." PDF Link [iipa.com].

From IIPA's blessing for NZ on the trade agreement: "Specific problems in some of the TPP countries are outlined in the Special 301 reports from 2009 for Chile [iipa.com], Peru [iipa.com], Brunei [iipa.com], and Vietnam [iipa.com]".

Where "specific problems" mean: No three strikes laws, no trade deal.

Cue slashdot posting "Chile/Peru/Brunei/Vietnam introduces 3 Strikes Law" in 3...2....

Resistance is futile.

Re:Better than the UK

[holloway]

Hi folks, I'm a New Zealander who's been following this law as part of an organisation called the Creative Freedom Foundation (I don't know what I can do to prove my credentials to an international audience... er, lowish /. id#?) Anyway here's the gist of the new proposal,

• People are innocent until proven guilty either by the Copyright Tribunal or the courts.
• Termination can only be ordered by the courts, not the Copyright Tribunal
• No special sanctions on right holders for false or malicious allegations.
• Penalties of up to $15,000 may be awarded by the Copyright Tribunal. This is in keeping with the maximum of the Disputes Tribunal.
• The courts have existing maximum fines that are already established under the Copyright Act.
• New definition for ISP that is narrower and excludes organisations such as businesses and universities. Too early to tell what this means for shared connections such as internet cafes, open WiFi, etc.
• It says "right holders will pay a fee per notice" although as regulations not set might be premature to read too much into that. This is as opposed to a process that allowed many notices on a flat-rate for rights-holders.
• No resolution to the overlap with s92C disputes. As outlined in our submission s92C lacks a counternotice procedure and due process. Further due to technology changes there may be no functional difference between an s92C or s92A dispute.
• Privacy is maintained by anonymizing details until a verdict is reached by the tribunal.

It's not a conventional "3 strike" process which is based on Guilt Upon Accusation, this is a tribunal system (as you asked, an extension of the existing Copyright Tribunal) to deal with copyright infringement online. If you have any questions about this let me know. Cheers.

Re:Horribly biased, unfair legislation

[kenshin33]

add to this the fact that right holder is not necessarily the author. And the authors are as fucked as the rest.

Re:Better than the UK

[holloway]

One: What is this "tribunal" like?

It's like New Zealand's Disputes Tribunal.

Who calls the shots? Who is in it?

It's a new division of the existing Copyright Tribunal which is a government-run body, but it will need new staff. The existing head of the Copyright Tribunal is Susy Frankel, who you can learn more about here [creativefreedom.org.nz].

How is it different than a regular court?

The Copyright Tribunal, like the Disputes Tribunal, is a lighter-weight process than a court but it has considerably fewer sanctions available (tribunals at a maximum can go to $15k, whereas courts can go to millions). Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_New_Zealand#Judiciary [wikipedia.org]