New Zealand Gov't Refuses To Remove 'Guilt Upon Accusation' Clause In Copyright Act

from the bad-law dept

Recently, New Zealand passed a copyright law similar to ones being pushed elsewhere by the entertainment industry, that would require accused file sharers to be cut off from their internet connection, based on the accusation alone. This seems to go against any concept of due process, and even musicians (who this law was supposed to help) came out against it loudly. Unfortunately, the politicians who put the law in place clearly had their minds already made up, and are refusing to change the law, which will go into effect in just a few weeks. Apparently, they want to see how it works in action, before making a decision on whether to change it — which I’m sure will be quite comforting to those who lose their internet access without any proof or conviction of unauthorized file sharing.

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Comments on “New Zealand Gov't Refuses To Remove 'Guilt Upon Accusation' Clause In Copyright Act”

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18 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

dont go after the politicians… accuse their kids, kids’ friends, nephews and nieces, neighbors, their kids’ educators, house cleaners, drivers, etc… dont go after them because they have the influence to get the service back on… go after the people around that; the people they have to deal with on a daily basis

trollificus says:

+2, insightful

previous AC makes a good point. The only “pressure” that’s going to count is not political or media-related, it’s going to be when some (or a lot of the) politicians’ nephew comes screaming at him thusly:

UNCLE JACK!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAJOR 20-MAN DUNGEON RAID FOR MAJOR LEWTZ!!!! WHAT THE FUCK????

Said politician can either reconsider the wisdom of this guilty-on-accusation crap or call the ISP with a hearty “Do you know who I AM?”

Ah, shit.

Slackr says:

As a NZer who has followed this website and also this stupid law I can say that I am distressed by the situation, heartened by the clear disenting voices with well articulated arguments, and gob-smacked at the Governments stuborness to listen to the experts in the area talk about their expertise. One of the best parts about this law is that there has been ZERO education of the implications for the public, charities or commercial businesses.

While some of you may want to ignore this as ‘little old NZ’, we are a testing ground for half of this stuff. Rest assured if it works at all in our country it will be coming to yours as the poster child as to how it ‘can’ work.

Personally I simply could not think of anything more satisfying than having some of the aforementioned *ohh shit** scenarios play out with so many connected to the internet suddenly left high and dry.

AC in post #8 that idea is pure evil genius.

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