Copyright and Select Committees
Colin Jackson from the Open Source Society has blogged a meeting between ICT reps and the Government over the new legal requirement for ISPS to terminate someone’s Internet account purely on the basis of allegations of copyright infringement.
The clause in question was in the original bill, and removed by the Select Committee (unanimously) as unnecessary as ISPs already terminate for illegal activity. The Select Committee also added on a clause to penalise people (up to $100,000 fines) who made false allegations of copyright infringement. This was also unanimously agreed to.
The Government then introduced at the Committee of the House stage an Supplementary Order Paper that reveresed both these changes made unanimously by the Select Committee. They put back in the provision for an ISP to be forced to terminate a customer merely on allegations of infringement, and even worse removed the penalty for false complaints.
What I found interesting from Colin’s blog was this explanation for why it was put back in:
When it opened, Judith Tizard spent 30 minutes telling us why the change had to be made. She began by strongly expressing her anger that we had complained to her at this stage in the proceedings. None of us, she said, had been to see her before this on this topic. When we protested that we had worked with the Select Committee, which had removed this provision – and balanced it with one which made licence holders liable for false accusations – this was completely inappropriate of the Select Committee, because Cabinet had already decided this was going ahead. We should not have been surprised, we were told, that this provision was reinserted by the government at the last minute before the bill was passed.
That is an interesting view on the roles of Select Committee. That it is completely inappropriate of them to mack changes that go against Cabinet policy.
So why do we bother with select committees?
October 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I wonder how much of this is driven by the government’s strong desire to strike that FTA with the USA.
The same is probably true of our involvement and implementation of the draconian provisions proposed under the ACTA.
It’s time that NZers woke up and realised that their rights are being rapidly eroded in all to many areas.
I’ve blogged about this on a number of occasions – want the links?
October 8th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Yes
Why do we have select committees?
perhaps Dame Tizard can explain?
After all The Labour Party knows what’s best!
Why bother with a parliament at all?
Do you think the enslaved class (incl our middle class teat suckers!) will give up their govt handouts and not vote Labour/Green/NZfirst/UF/Alliance/?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Judith Tizard seems to have made a dog’s breakfast out of this. It seems to be her habit to abuse people rather than deal with the issues.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
It’s not just Judith…. its the whole of this arrogant lefty bunch, personified by the biggest government dog of all…. Winston. This is why the doggie chew toy poll is so right – they’re dog tucker.
October 8th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
So the question is what will her response be when the day after the legislation becomes law someone anonymously sends 3 ( false) complaints of copyright infringement to the ISP that hosts the Labour party website?
or when an ISP receives a series of complaints ( legitimate ones ) against a government department or University that it has for a customer and then cuts them off what will happen?
October 8th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Have we become so apathetic as a nation that the totalitarian socialists don’t even bother trying to hide their true colours anymore?
Even though we have the EFA, voters are still in danger of being influenced by people other than the Labour party. Surely it is now time for legislation which removes the sovereignty of parliament, and installs Helen as Grand Poobah of New Zealand!
How much longer must we tolerate this ‘democracy’ crap before we can implement the One True Way of communism?
Only then will the People be free!
October 8th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Yep, what everyone else said above. There is a “curse of socialism”…….everything run, planned, organised, controlled, designed, by a socialist, will turn to S**T. Is there one single Bill that has been drawn up by these people and their cronies, that is not an unworkable disaster? And can we expect any better from any socialist, other than for them to complain that the whole problem is because we have not relinquished TOTAL control to them? BAH. And Kiwis actually vote in a government of these people? We might as well just bring back King John I and forget Magna Carta and everything since.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Just a bunch of idiots.
Torrent sites are already encrypting their torrents to get around similar legislation overseas.
When will the Music companies, Movie companies etc realise that they have gone down the wrong road to try and control copyright abuse?
I personally think they have gone too far for many of the current generation of net users.
Treating your customers like criminals was always going to end badly. Now they need more and more draconian laws to try and make people submit.
All this will do is increase costs for consumers who will have to pay for ISP’s to be the interweb police.
We already have some of the highest costs in the world for bandwidth and this will just give ISP’s an excuse to gouge us further.
Judith – stick with your knitting dear.
October 9th, 2008 at 3:29 am
Partly in response to Bruce – this latest saga reinforces that Labour is the most anti-business, anti-private administration in NZ’s history. It’s become pretty clear that the feminist cabal heading up the administration are extremely pro-socialist in their outlook on many of the policies which have been implemented in the last nine years.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Labour MP’s really are a bunch of silly sausages.