Somewhat stunned...

I see the anti-filesharing bill snook in by pretending to be earthquake relief ... I think that's my biggest gripe about this: MPs should not be able to push a bill through by pretending it is something else. A lot of us weren't watching because we were told the seesion was to help those CHCH needy people and who would oppose anything that is for disaster relief?

Its not a huge disaster... at least you are innocent until proven guilty. Did I say "proven"? Oh dear - I meant "until big corporate interests take you to a tribunal". I want to see what sort of evidence-based decision making the copyright tribunal uses. Since the main complaint is that corporate interests find actually proving their cases too much trouble and this is supposed to be better (for them) I'm not hopeful.

More worrying is the ignorance in our political leaders. As voters, we need to insist that MPs we elect actually understand a bit about the single most influential media form of the 21st century - the internet. C'mon people.

For example:

the computer system called Skynet that ruled the world, is like the internet today.... Johnathan Young

No John, it isn't. Terminator's Skynet was self-aware and operated without human intervention. It tries to wipe out human beings by sending armed robots to kill them. By comparison, the internet facilitates normal human communication and socializing ... part of normal human socializing is sharing stuff we like with our friends.

It is really important to remember that file sharing is an illegal activity.... Katrina Shanks

No Kat, sharing files is quite legal, and a normal social activity. It is copyright infringement that is against the law. The bill was supposed to make it easier to enforce existing copyright laws. The main complaint is from corporate interests (publishers, producers and the like) who find it is too expensive to take internet users to court and too hard to prove they've done anything wrong when they do. Even then, a win is not guaranteed ... so they want something cheaper and that requires less (preferably no) proof.


Basically, if this is such a good law, why sneak it in? There was extensive and robust public debate over the last one... OK it was ignored, but it was done. I'm with boing boing on this:

Using the tragedy in Christchurch as a means to advance the corporate agenda of offshore entertainment giants is shameful, to say the least