NZ’s three strikes policy; too soft or too harsh?

New Zealand’s Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, has unanimously passed its first reading in Parliament last April. Now parties that have made submissions to the bill are being heard.  

The proposed three strikes regime would enables repeating copyright infringers to be disconnected by their internet provider for up to six months, plus a possibility for the rights owners to claim damages. This controversial copyright enforcement strategy is found to be either too soft or too harsh.

New Zealand’s Law Society claims the current draft is insufficient to deter serial infringers from downloading music and movies without consent from copyright holders. Instead of only suspending the infringer’s current internet account, courts should be given the power to ban serious copyright infringers from opening new internet accounts entirely. "The Bill should include a power to allow the court to order that a person cannot open an account with another ISP during the period of the suspension," says Clive Elliot of New Zealand’s Law Society’s intellectual property law committee.

InternetNZ would rather see the three strikes regime removed from the Amendment Bill, says director Jordan Carter. “A disconnection penalty is a response way out of line with the harm caused by infringing file sharing. People are using the Internet for a huge range of important economic and social tasks. Cutting off their accounts is akin to banning someone from using the postal system because they were caught posting copied music CDs,” according to Carter.

Source: TorrentFreak