TorrentFreak

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?

The website of the New Zealand parliament is down after suffering unprecedented and excessive demand for its services. Or, to put it another way, someone flooded it with huge amounts of traffic rendering it completely useless. Earlier today, parliamentary service manager Geoff Thorn sent an email to MPs explaining that the site (which should be [...]

Last week, New Zealand joined the growing club of countries that have introduced special legislation to deal with illicit file-sharing. Rushed through unexpectedly, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill put in place a 3 strikes-style regime. In response to the Government’s actions people immediately started to protest. As last year with operation blackout thousands [...]

The New Zealand government has surprised the public and even some MPs by moving to rush through its controversial 3 strikes-style legislation today. The new measures will allow for users to be disconnected from the Internet for up to 6 months, based on infringement claims from copyright holders.