After a major public outcry over the last time New Zealand mulled its own three strikes, the three strikes law, also known as s92a in the country, has been revamped by the government and released to the public.
“Mr Power announced the release of a Cabinet Paper that outlines the basis of new legislation,” the government press release states, “which will be introduced to Parliament early next year. This follows a review of section 92A of the Copyright Act 1994.”
The model appears to be pretty much a copy of Frances three strikes law where after a third notice, a court must order the disconnection of the alleged copyright infringement.
Local digital rights advocacy organization Creative Freedom had some concerns for the revamped law. A big concern was that there was no system for a counter notice in the event a false accusation is made. In some respects, the revamped law maintains the guilt upon accusation all the way up to the third strike. Another flaw is that there are no repercussions for making a false accusation.
One additional criticism one might make is that this does nothing to foster any legitimate marketplace. What has the industry done to create an attractive alternative to file-sharing? From what is immediately obvious, it seems nothing is being done about it, so the real choice for consumers is either an old, outdated, expensive and restrictive system or a system that has next to no restrictions, is free and in the now. In the end, this is a futile law as file-sharers will either ignore the law or find ways of circumventing the law to get what they want. The only thing this law still creates is more criminals and civil disobedience.
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Hi, it’s Matt Holloway here from the Creative Freedom Foundation
“The model appears to be pretty much a copy of Frances three strikes law where after a third notice, a court must order the disconnection of the alleged copyright infringement.”
It’s not nearly as bad as the crazy approach in France. With this new proposal people are innocent until proven guilty in a court or a tribunal. Internet disconnection can only be ordered by a court (as it is in the US, already). In New Zealand we have an existing tribunal system (called the Disputes Tribunal) for low-level issues that don’t demand a full court case but these tribunals can’t inflict massive sanctions. The maximum both the Copyright Tribunal and the existing Disputes Tribunal can award is 15k (about 10k US).
There’s still a lot to do on the law. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.
Our press release about the law is here
http://creativefreedom.org.nz/story.html?id=454