Tuesday 1:43pm (10th February 2009)

APRA and RIANZ Seek Power To Judge Copyright Infringement..
Section 92A calls for ISPs to have a disconnection policy, and the TCF released a draft policy that will be used by some of the industry. Perhaps showing how extremist APRA and RIANZ have become they now support parts* of a "Reworded Strawman Counter-Notice Procedure" (pages 30-34) of the draft policy... the parts that involve approved accusers judging the accused directly rather than an ISP. Typically a wrongly accused person would respond with what's called a Counter Notice saying that they reject the accusation and an ISP would judge that, but with the RSCN Procedure the accuser is empowered to decide whether the accused's Counter Notice is valid, not the ISP. The accuser then instructs the ISP accordingly. This is still draft policy but it shows how far APRA and RIANZ are willing to go, and this is appalling behaviour from these organisations. The TCF invite your feedback on this or you can join the discussion on our forum. If you write to the TCF detail the number of people that you speak for and the nature of your interest in this. Keep it polite as the TCF are mediators in this. And if you haven't written a letter to National's Steven Joyce and Chris Finlayson then now is the time.