Why New Zealand was dumb to let the USA write its copyright laws
Juha sez, "Christopher Wood has summarised the thirteen reasons why the punitive New Zealand copyright Act as per US orders is a bad idea."1. Presumed guilty on accusation13 reasons why the Infringing File Sharing Act is bad for you by Christopher Wood (Thanks, Juha!)Despite the revision committee trying to fudge the issue, this law does work via the presumption of guilt. If the accused party has had their 3 warnings and goes to the Copyright Tribunal, they have to give reasons why the warnings were invalid. But if the accused party is innocent, what reasons can they have, apart from "I didn't do it"?
Presumption of guilt is rife for abuse, as has happened overseas under similar laws. In the digital realm evidence is often very temporary, complex, and easily fabricated, so providing evidence of your innocence could be very difficult, depending on how much is required. Providing evidence of your guilt is almost as difficult, but why should that mean an advantage should be given to accusers? New Zealand intellectual property lawyer Rick Shera says the law is grossly unfair, out of place and unnecessary in this analysis: http://lawgeeknz.posterous.com/nzs-copyright-proposal-guilty-until-you-prove When a new law contradicts the Bill of Rights it better have an extremely good reason... and protecting the entertainment industry isn't one.
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