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Debate on section 92a, between Bronwyn Holloway-Smith (Creative Freedom Foundation), Ant Healey (APRA) and Technology Journalist, Pat Pilcher.

View streaming on demand from tvnz Episode 2, 5 Feb 2009 (in chapter 3).

Some snippets transcribed for the hearing+flashplayer impaired:

Moderator: Have you gone back to your members? because [Creative Freedom members include] APRA members who are really unhappy about this.
APRA:... We're a big organisation .. of 6,000 members, of course they will have divergent opinions. We are governed by a board of composers, a board of directors who are composers. We have clear instructions about posistion to take

(he didn't answer the question - did APRA consult their members or not?)

APRA: We must, we must not stand idly by and watch really core important rights simply be ignored
Moderator: But you've just had your best revenue year ever last year. You don't seem to be suffering from this.
APRA: well, we are. If you look at the revenue streams that revolve around the revenue from CD sales, a small part of which goes to the composer, of course we are. I could give you those figures and the figures would be decimated.

........ they've had their best revenue ever - but cd sales are down so this means we need to do something about the decimation of vinyl records magnetic tape CD sales.

Making intentionally false allegation of copyright infringement is a really really bad idea - i suspect it would be considered fraud - and i'd advise anyone planning such things to rethink. Suggestions in comments that someone should accuse the prime minister, cabinet, APRA and more is really bad advice.

There is no penalty for mistaken false accusations -- that's not the same as intentional false accusations.

Most torrent trackers include a large number of false IPs - they list people who aren't sharing at all, they're just randomly chosen - and that is how a group of researcher easily convinced the RIAA to falsely accuse a printer of sharing/downloading films illegally.

It has been suggested that you can find a list of government departments, libraries, schools and hospitals and add them to a tracker -- make it look as if they too are sharing stuff when they're not -- trivial to do.

This also would be a bad idea - and i advice folks to not do it - but i can't think of how you'd ever be caught.

If you listened to recording industry lobbyists, you could be fooled into thinking the artistic and creative citizens of New Zealand are united in wanting Guilt apon Accusation in New Zealand law, and for copyright holders to have the right to take down any website or disconnect any person, business, school, hospital, or institute from the internet without trial, without proof of any crime and no penalty for false accusations.

These laws passed under the Labour government. National voted yes. (greens and maori party voted no). Most went into effect on November 1st - the remainder go into effect on 1st March.

If you're an artist, and don't want draconian laws made in your name, or just want more info on WTF New Zealand government and recording industry lobbyist have unleashed apon New Zealanders, head over to http://creativefreedom.org.nz

There are so many fronts on which the "freedom" of the internet is under attack in my own country, neighbouring countries, and elsewhere.

Here in New Zealand a new copyright act went into effect on 1st November. The most controversial clause has been delayed until 28th February. This clause says that an ISP must have a policy of disconnecting anyone repeatedly accused of copyright infringment. ...

That's accusation only. There's no oppourtunity to defend yourself, no recourse for reconnection, and there's no penalty for false accusations. If you want someone off the internet you need only repeatedly accuse them of copyright infringement ("repeatedly" has legal precidents to mean 3 times). Aparently file sharing is so bad you don't even get a trial (can they not see where that logic leads?). Even pedaphiles get a trial before they are considered guilty and punished. I could not continue my occupation if i was disconnected.

There's also that great treaty called "ACTA" - Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which on the surface is defending against fake prada handbags, but also fake baby prams (won't someone please think of the children!).. and fake medicines. I'm unsure if they mean cheap generic medicines that infringes patents, or if they mean dangerous medicines that aren't what they say on the labels -- but regardless, the Music and Film industry have been asked for their wishlist (to crack down on those dangerous counterfeit music tracks). The problem is the countries participating in ACTA negotiations have signed with the USA that they will not reveal the contents of the treaty until after they ratify it.

The public were asked for submissions in New Zealand, but how the frack am i to send a submission on a treaty when i cannot see the contents of it?

In the EU a group of citizens used their official information act to force the EU council to reveal the contents of this treaty... the Council said No. Who are they accountable to? Aparently not to their citizens and not to their own laws.

Within the wishlists of RIAA is making ISPs liable for copyright infringement that happens through their networks.. This we need to be very vocal about. How's an ISP to know whether a data packet contains a copyright infringement?? by only allowing you to talk to sony.com + apple.com ?

In other news, Australia looks like it's about to force all isps to enforce a blacklist of IPs. The result is all of Australia's internet access being filtered, in the on going mission to stamp out child porn. Their internet is going to get horribly slow, and it's not going to stop child porn. You just know the black list (a huge collection of child porn website urls) is going to leak out straight into the hands of the folks who want these urls. I hear a politician is trying to get a list of all R18 sites and add that to a list also. That's some huge list to check against on every packet. (not just port 80, otherwise it'd be too easy to bypass).

Amongst the debate over New Zealand's Copyright act, it was reported that Judith Tizard "yelled" at the Internet Industry representatives who met with her.