The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Bill was introduced into Parliament on the 23rd of February. Here’s the press release.
A copy of the bill is on the New Zealand legislation website here. Also a regulatory impact statement (15 page pdf) was published by the Ministry of Economic Development.
Disconnecting New Zealanders from the Internet is still in there, but now requires a court order. The previous section92A (now suspended) was much more vague and would have resulted in ISPs needing to be the judge of any accusations, without any involvement of the courts. The role of judge has now been moved back to the justice system, and the newly repurposed Copyright Tribunal who are actually qualified to understand copyright law.
If disconnection is ordered by a court, the guilty will be disconnected from their ISP for 6 months. There doesn’t appear to be anything stopping someone immediately reconnecting to a different ISP. This shows how inappropriate disconnection is as a penalty.
The definition of an ISP has been fixed in this bill, to exclude those places that give out free wifi (such as cafes, airports) from being ISPs.
Old definition
“Internet service provider means a person who does either or both of the
following things:“(a) offers the transmission, routing, or providing of connections
for digital online communications, between or among points specified by
a user, of material of the user’s choosing:“(b) hosts material on websites or other electronic retrieval
systems that can be accessed by a user
New definition
“ISP, or Internet service provider, means a person that operates a
business that-“(a) offers the transmission, routing, and providing of
connections for digital online communications, between or among points
specified by a user, of material of the user’s choosing; and“(b) charges its account holders for the services provided in
paragraph (a) on a regular basis; and“(c) is not primarily operated to cater for transient users
More info coming as we get our heads around the implications of this bill.
I’m not a member of creative freedom, but do believe in CF’s goals of internet freedom and free speech. I read the New Zealand Herald’s article on the Copyright Bill and find it very unsettling. How can I as a member of the public help to politically fight this bill?
By the way, has CF heard of EFF, or Electronics Frontier Foundation? They work toward similar agendas on an international level and are based in San Francisco, US. Their website is http://www.eff.org
Why are parts of the regulatory impact statement “omitted”?
I read through the act but it does not outline how the copyright holder will know my ip address?? Doesn anyone know??
sorry ignore the last comment It’s in the impact statement. pg. 10. The law will be ineffective as there is already software out there which can counter the software copyright holders use.