TorrentFreak

A briefing has revealed that Hollywood summoned New Zealand Prime Minister John Key to meetings in the United States to discuss his country’s “3 strikes” anti-piracy law. The system is currently operational but after lobbying hard for its implementation the studios have refused to use it, claiming that the costs of sending notices to infringers are too high. They told Key that although they have great respect for the scheme, they now need a discount to make it work.

RIANZ, New Zealand’s answer to the RIAA, have withdrawn their case against an individual they said should have been punished under the country’s “3 strikes” anti-filesharing regime. The decision follows a procedure beset by problems, including delivery of erroneous infringement notices and a claim for financial punishments that was not only unsupported by the law, but appears to have been reached via guesswork on the part of rightsholders.

According to a submission made to the New Zealand government by the major studios, the mere threat of sending out an infringement warning halved movie piracy in less than a month. After years of battling for “3 strikes” the studios haven’t sent out a single warning, but nevertheless insist that to reduce piracy further they’ll have to send out thousands. The recording labels want to do the same at a greatly reduced cost, but the ISPs want to charge four times more than they do now.

A teenager who appears to have taken his protest against an anti-piracy law a little too far will find himself in court tomorrow. The 18-year-old allegedly posted a video on YouTube protesting the legislation just passed by New Zealand. In it he claimed that websites would be hacked and that explosives had been planted in government buildings.

Today the Copyright Infringing File Sharing Act officially came into force in New Zealand. Those who are caught sharing copyrighted material online will from now on receive warning letters via their ISP. On receipt of a third notice, copyright holders can take Internet account holders to the Copyright Tribunal where they will face fines of [...]

As New Zealand braces itself following the introduction of a 3 strikes-style scheme for dealing with online copyright infringement, the CEO of one of the country’s largest ISPs has slammed the legislation. TelstraClear chief Allan Freeth says that punishing consumers isn’t the answer and that business models requiring new legislation in order to function are flawed and need to be changed.

Today marks the start of P2P network monitoring for New Zealand’s “3 strikes” anti-filesharing legislation. As the government is criticized for not launching their official information resource until next week, a Reddit user claims to be using a government network to share Miley Cyrus movies. As an ISP account holder itself, will the government get hit with the 3 strikes ban-hammer?