NZ Government experiments with ISPs

The New Zealand Government overlooked an opportunity to dissect a contentious law that seeks to enforce copyright by giving ISPs the responsibility to cut off any user not complying with three warnings.

This is the bull headed socialism that the Labour Government enacted defensively and very unwisely in the last year of it's 9 years firmly holding the reigns of government. Most likely, hoping to confuse the then opposition and predictable winners of the next election, the National Party, they left behind this obviously "shonky" law. It simply will cause more damage to New Zealand's reputation as a fair and just environment. It will also be an own goal by the incumbent government.

Unfortunately, it seems that this new Government been caught with not having read it properly and deferred opportunities to have it discussed so allowing it to proceed into the law books.

The law in question is not only a violation of human rights but demonises copyright law. The consequences are not really in the control of the law makers. This could also have terrible and far reaching economic consequences as injustices start to evolve out of ISPs using the law defensively to avoid prosecution and blacklist customers.

Imagine waking up one morning to discover that you can no longer run your hosting company or even access email. That is the uncertainty this bill will create - an environment where anyone can be called an ISP and called out for "copyright violations" perhaps even accessed by bots on their network. It simply is unsound, unjust, and as a precedent - it puts the entire internet and the freedom of speech it bestows on humanity at risk of short sighted convenient or reactionary legislative barriers.

In other words it is a distortion of the relationship between user and ISP. This legislation needs to be fought at every level. It is a precedent that that Internet most certainly does not need.

Today, New Zealanders are writing to their MPs. If this law proceeds, the protests may become more widespread. Already the international media have picked up on the draconian measure.