Ew.
This law is backwards for many reasons, regardless of your stance on illegal downloads, and is opposed by most of New Zealand's computer industry, including most of the internet service providers themselves. Internet providers are supposed to stop you from accessing the internet based on suspicion and accusations, not evidence. There is no requirement for them to prove that you are downloading illegal documents.
Now, Article 11 of the UDHR clearly states that everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be "presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial". This law effectively removes the human rights of all the thousands, nay, millions of New Zealanders who download material which is not strictly legal.
Copyright law and illegal downloads is definitely a hot topic at the moment, and if you're interested, check out the Creative Freedom Foundation NZ, a local group which "views the internet as an opportunity for artists, not a threat, and seeks to bring copyright laws into the 21st century".
5 comments:
Clearly the communists have infiltrated the upper echelons of the NZ government.
For once something good will come out of my iTunes instead of LimeWire use!
For all seriousness though, this is a horrible and deeply misguided way to combat piracy etc. Even the US government hasn't tried to pull this trick out of their asses.
Judging from how many of the people at East illegaly download tv shows and music (I'm looking at you, Romana), half of New Zealand will have their connection severed, more if you count people who are falsely accused of downloading.
As Ms Judge said in Jo's earlier post about illegal downloading, the government/tv and music execs need to find a way of working with the internet/downloading, not against it. Websites like hulu are a great start, however they aren't available in NZ due to copyright laws. (By the way, people wouldn't download tv in NZ nearly as much if TVNZ and TV3 had better programming. GOSSIP GIRL NOW.)
Your angle of it as a human rights violation is very interesting Jessie, might I suggest a letter to the newspaper about it?
Romana, you can't just keep blaming things on the communists. Do they even exist anymore outside of China?
Does Cuba ring any bells Jessie? Also George Bush is part of one of their plots.
Duh.
ah. noes. Thats privacy ruined too.
^there's also chavez!
hurrah to socialism!
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