New Zealand government is moving to rush through a controversial new “three strikes” anti-piracy law that will target users who share copyrighted material without permission of the rights holder, which essentially means anyone who pirates software.
The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill (which unanimously passed its first Parliament reading in April of last year), will put the aforementioned “three strikes” system into place, where Internet service providers will be required to send warning letters to pirates the first couple of times they are caught pirating, and if they’re caught offending again, New Zealand’s Copyright Tribunal will be given the power to rule on cases of alleged repeat offenders and fine said offenders up to $15,000.
The real kicker, though, is that if offenders continue to pirate after the warnings and fines, the Bill will allow a six month period of Internet disconnection to be applied to said offenders–boiling down to software pirates being legally forced off the Internet by the government. Remind anyone of one Zero Cool? Certain government officials are opposed to the inclusion of the mandatory disconnect and want to amend the Bill later on to remove said area, but Commerce Minister Simon Power said the request to amend the Bill to remove the mandatory disconnect would be opposed. The Bill is expected to pass sometime today, and as TorrentFreak points out, is causing protests on Twitter.
(via TorrentFreak)
