Kiwis Scrap Controversial ‘3 Strikes’ Anti-Piracy Law
Written by enigmax on March 23, 2009Following a mountain of bad publicity and strong objections from just about everyone except the entertainment industries, New Zealand’s proposed ‘guilty upon accusation’ Section 92A anti-piracy law has been scrapped.
In 2008, the New Zealand government passed ‘3-strike’ legislation which was designed to have alleged copyright infringers disconnected from the Internet. Last month a code of practice was drafted by the music industry and ISPs which attempted to formalize how ISPs would go about disconnecting people.
However, after much discussion between the parties and outrage in the Internet community, no agreement was reached in the time frame allocated, and Prime Minister John Key announced that the law would be delayed while a solution was found.
Today things have gone stage further. As it became clear that an agreement on a code of practice would not be reached even with a delay, the New Zealand government has scrapped the controversial Section 92A legislation.
“Cabinet today decided that section 92A of the Copyright Act 1994 will not come into force on 27 March as scheduled, but will be amended to address areas of concern,” said Minister for Commerce, Simon Power. “Allowing Section 92A to come into force in its current format would not be appropriate given the level of uncertainty around its operation,” he added.
Prime Minister John Key said that although some progress was made between the entertainment industries and ISPs, there was not enough common ground to reach agreement.
“Section 92A is not going to come into force as originally written. We have now asked the minister of commerce [Simon Power] to start work on a replacement section,” Key said.
Back in February, InternetNZ, the non-profit group responsible for protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand, called Section 92A “faulty” and “disproportionate and unfit for purpose” but today they are breathing a sigh of relief.
“Terminating an Internet account was always a disproportionate response to copyright infringement and to force ISPs and other organizations to be copyright judges and policemen was never an acceptable situation,” said InternetNZ executive chairman, Keith Davidson.
Meanwhile, users on Twitter expressed their delight at the news and no doubt the anti-Section 92A people over at ‘Creative Freedom‘ will be delighted that all their hard work has paid off.
The question now remains – will Section 92A be rewritten completely, or will the government stick a couple of Band-Aids on it and hope for the best? Time will tell…
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28 Responses
LONG LIVE THE HYDRA!
time for celebration
Yes!!! for the time being anyway….
FFS! “Guilty on accusation” should never have been considered in the first place.. what kind of free society would even consider a f##king law modeled after 1940’s Nazi Gestapo style policing in the first place.
someone in Kiwi parliment needs a good boot up the bum.
otherwise, congrats to the Kiwi’s.. for now anyway :)
Geez, didnt the kiwi version of the RIAA throw enuf money and bullshit at the kiwi lawmakers??
Excellent news. Let’s hope that it won’t come back.
Now could also be a good time for the NZ ISP mentioned on Torrentfreak earlier to rethink their current practice of disconnecting accused users of copyright infringement.
Brett and Jemaine breathe a sigh of relief, now they are not ashamed to called themselves New Zealanders.
~Flight of the Conchords
the sooner governments realise that the proposals to police the internet in any form are a waste of time. also, that any proposal from the music and/or movie industry is not to the benefit of the artists involved but to the benefit of the companies, enabling ‘fat cats’ to remain as ‘fat cats’, doing little or nothing to maintain their exorbitant salaries whilst ripping off the public with well over priced commodities. move with the times RIAA etc, most people dont mind paying for good quality, reasonably priced music and movies.
OK heres the irony the flight of the concords stuff was done by the bbc an english and american production, nobody in nz appears to have had any input into the tv program according to wikipeadia.
I have no artists from NZ on my cd rack, and since i dont know any NZ music artists im certainly not going to torrent it.
Does New Zealand have a cultural scene ? that it exports – the answer it appears is no.
Well I guess the US dollar is really losing its value.
Is there a Pirate Party in New Zealand by any chance?
yeah m8, nz lacks the ‘talent’ of hollywood marketing alright. nobody can spin shit into a flower like they can.
SO what do the people saying the NZ government (or simply “governments”) only listen to lobbying, only make decisions to please entities that donate money and do not care about votes?
Good decision and surely demonstrates that interest groups can influence the political decision makers without being major campaign contributors.
Remember, the government is likely corrupt; so they will have to bow to the copyright industry.
Your government is the most well funded and skilled adversary that you have. Remember this.
Don’t trust. Don’t fear. Don’t ask.
We may soon see that New-Zealanders are smarter than the French where this 3 strikes anti piracy law will be “discussed” in the parliament. Nice job Kiwis, hope you’ll be an example for us.
Hurrah! Twas a silly idea.
I’m a kiwi
@11 no sadly no pirate party, I would love to start one some day when I have the cash to fund it.
@13 no government isn’t corrupt, just one of our ministers is overtly dumb, believed RIANZ and all their propganda.
@Everyone
The real story about our Section92 law – which is the antipiracy law that got scrapped was that the RIAA for NZ -> RIANZ went after one of our ministers, she doesn’t entirely know much about the internet and she proposed this law. Nothing was said about the implications this law would create, but she believe their excuse “its about the protecting the copyrights of the artists” – the law didn’t exactly focus on Music downloads, (I suspect NZFACT – thats our MPAA in NZ had a say in it to leave it open field.)
When it went to parliment, it was discussed and passed, but in NZ, very few laws are ever implimented immediately theres usually a grace period of a 3-6months.
So when it became news that its gonna become law, that was when everyone realised what happened and the huge fight over it started.
Judith Tizzard stated that anyone who gets disconnected can go to a library to get the internet so its not really a big issue.
The implications outreached just people pirating music to almost everything, it made the ice real thin.
I believe she realizes now she basically got played by RIANZ. Shes kept a real low profile around the section92 (anti-piracy law) issue.
It’s not over yet, they’ll keep trying, just wait.
What took so long.
the moral of the story here is, before you agree to or sign anything, make sure you know what you are getting in to! if not, sure as hell, it will come back to bite you in the ass, real hard!! maybe she and other politicians will realise what these bastards are actually up to now!!
About time the “Eircom_Licks” followed this in Ireland.
Good its about time~
ER
http://www.privacy.at.tc
but the rest of said crap law exists
DOWN WITH POLITICIANS
tear down the wall , tear down the wall
Well, don’t need to undertake my plan to download the interwebs in advance anymore…
Take note Ireland when they start with you again…
#9 kiwis have a huge cultural scene…..go and read up on maoris firstly…as far as entertainment exports go and read into ‘Scribe’ and similar artists
ffs MPAA nubs i wish they all burn in hell
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