
New Zealand Government Rushes Through Controversial Anti-Piracy Law - Uncle_Sam
http://torrentfreak.com/new-zealand-government-rushes-through-controversial-anti-piracy-law-110413/
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jrockway
Why do we call laws like these "anti-XXX"? The laws do not prevent piracy;
it's already arguably illegal. All these laws do is excessively punish the
offenders. We should call these laws "severe arbitrary punishment laws"
instead, as that's what they actually are.

I'm fine with making sharing movies illegal, but the punishment should be
something like a $50 fine, similar to riding public transportation without a
valid ticket. The damage to society is similar (i.e., near zero), so the
reparations to society should be similarly minimal.

Let's be honest. The world will not descend into chaos if people share movies
and jaywalk. Let's not write laws that imagine otherwise.

~~~
lliiffee
The reason the fines are so high is that risk of getting caught is
infinitesimal. This is the same reason they had to raise fines for honking in
NY in non-emergencies to $500 to get people to stop. The appropriate fine
should be something like

(damage to society) <= (fine) * (risk of getting caught)

~~~
bioh42_2
(damage to society) <= (fine) * (risk of getting caught)

This is nuts. If say a kid spray paints a tiny bit on an abandoned building at
night, and then gets caught, by your logic we should ruin his life. We must
treat something like that like murder because the chances of getting caught
are so low.

~~~
lliiffee
You can also work on risk part of the equation, of course.

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Peroni
A direct link to the proposed bill if anyones interested:

[http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2010/0119/lat...](http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2010/0119/latest/whole.html?search=ts_bill_Copyright+%28Infringing+File+Sharing%29+Amendment+Bill_resel&p=1#tmpn1011a)

I used to work for one of the countries leading ISP's and they have
historically been massively against this proposal. They have always been vocal
proponents of Net Neutrality and I can't see them simply accepting the
conditions of this bill without a fight.

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NZ_Matt
This tweet sums up the situation best "Having parliament talk about
filesharing is like having gay guys talk about vagina. They don't really get
it, and they don't want to."

I watched the debate on parliament tv tonight and the lack of understanding of
many of the ministers was very disheartening, It's technically not going to be
possible to prove guilt or innocence for downloading pirated content via
torrents. The decision to push it through in urgency is equally outrageous.

There was one lone MP opposed who certainly seemed to "get it" and he gave a
very good speech <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLHJYWa9iDM>

~~~
gdp
Well, the entire Green party opposed it. It was just Hughes that spoke.

The sad part is that he proposed an amendment to remove the disconnection
provision, and it was voted down by Labour and National. What happened to
having an opposition?

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bediger
These bills/laws/what-have-you always seem to get "rushed" through. Something
un-democratic happens on each and every one of them. UK's Digital Millenium
act gets passed without debate in the last minutes of a session. France's
Hadopi law gets mysteriously passed after being rejected. ACTA gets negotiated
in secret.

Why?

~~~
sixtofour
Why? Campaign contributions/lobbying/bribery. Whatever it's called in your
particular jurisdiction.

~~~
bediger
That's the mechanics of the "why", thank you for that. Let me clarify:

Rushing or backdooring these things through has a cost, and a price. Both have
to be higher than a normal legislative process, I believe. I guess I should
say "what motivates people to rush or backdoor these things through at the
higher cost?" rather than just say "Why?".

~~~
gdp
I believe that the National party in NZ believe that by implementing ACTA
(that's essentially what this is) that they will curry favor in terms of a
potential US free trade agreement. It's basically the US dictating
intellectual property law to the world.

The reason to do it under urgency is that it's so incredibly flawed and
unpopular, it probably wouldn't stand up to a normal democratic process. So by
sidestepping the democratic process, it makes it much easier to get things
done.

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gdp
Here's the letter I wrote to my local MP. People are welcome to appropriate
any bits of it to form their own indignant letters to elected representatives,
if they like:

[http://www.plsadventures.com/2011/04/i-dont-usually-post-
non...](http://www.plsadventures.com/2011/04/i-dont-usually-post-non-pl-
related.html)

