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p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- “Big music and movie interests, and other content producers, are conducting a global campaign to put their interests ahead of citizens rights to use the internet and to not be subject to unreasonable and arbitrary penalties that do nothing for public interest.”

The words belong to Jordan Carter, deputy executive director of Internet New Zealand.

It “would not be in New Zealand’s best interest to sign a global treaty on copyright law, as each individual country should develop its own regulations,” he says, quoted by the National Business Review.

His statement follows the latest round of anti-counterfeiting trade agreement ACTA, which wrapped up in Seoul, Korea, last week.

“InternetNZ deputy executive director Jordan Carter said the organisation was all in favour of developing an international treaty against content piracy but strongly disagreed against a global policy that enforced punishment on individual users  who breached infringement notices,” the story continues.

“Instead, New Zealand should be able to develop its own regulations,” he said.

If the country decides it, rather than the corporate entertainment industry, should be drawing up rules and regulations which affect its citizens, it’ll be joining Spain and Germany which have both decided they, and not Hollywood or Big Music, will decide what, if anything, to do about the spectre of ‘piracy’.

The UK seems determined to become a taxpayer-funded extension of the corporate entertainment industry, and as p2pnet revealed today, “We propose to legislate to ensure that consumers whose broadband account has been identified in connection with alleged copyright infringement would be alerted by letter,” says business secretary Peter Mandelson, going on »»»

This would set out the legal position but also provide pointers for help and information on, for example, how to protect wireless networks properly, where to find legal sources and routes of appeal.  This letter would come from the Internet Service Providers (ISP) concerned, not a law firm.  This should help address many concerns about individuals being wrongly identified, not having the correct information or indeed feeling pressured by the threat of legal action.

For those individuals who choose to ignore the letter, they will receive a number of further warnings before they are ultimately addd to a list of those subscribers most frequently alleged to have breached copyright.  Rights holders will be able to use a court order to obtain the details of these individuals and then take targeted legal action as appropriate. This should ensure that individuals have ample opportunity to change their behaviour, take appropriate action to, for example, secure their wireless connection or indeed appeal.  It would also mean that only those who chose to ignore the warnings and who appeared to continue to infringe copyright on a large scale would face legal action.

As a final safeguard, this activity would be underpinned by a Code overseen by the independent regulator the Office of Communications (Ofcom).  A key issue the Code would have to cover is consumer protection- one of Ofcom’s prime roles.  However, we are breaking new ground in legislating to tackle this type of activity and while we are confident these measures will significantly reduce the level of unlawful file-sharing, we cannot be sure.  That is why we are also including the option to allow the introduction of technical measures if the notifications and legal action do not prove as effective as we expect.

But, “We don’t support this three strikes approach, and would be very disappointed if John Key signed an agreement [than implemented this],” says Carter in the National Business Review story.

Moreover, the government should clarify its stance on the matter and “put more information about what exactly is under discussion into the public domain,” he says.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

National Business Review – NZ should not sign international piracy agreement, November 9, 2009
wrapped up in Seoul – Three strikes world-wide, and a global DMCA, November 4, 2009
Spain – Spain says No! to 3 strikes law, November 6, 2009
Germany – Germany says ‘No!’ to 3 strikes law, October 28, 2009

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