Law to fight internet piracy passed

#228 explained it perfectly. This is not a situation where you can say 'if you dont commit piracy you have nothing to fear' -- if you use the internet then you have everything to fear. Do some study, people!

This is undemocratic, and should not be allowed by law. Our government feels it can do whatever it damn well pleases (which it pretty much can) -- we need to do something about this asap.

Oh, and if you voted National last election, go do the world a favour. Say no more.

Not only is it disstastfull rushing this bill under the cover of natural disaters and with "urgency," it would be impossible for them to find whos illegaly downloading - since downloading tv series can hardly be considered illegal since they get aired on tv and streemed on ondemand for free and theres simply to much data going around on the internet these days to filter through in the first place

Copyright is different from patents, in that it is much harder to protect. It is a valid point in some respects, that copyright law infringes upon the right to share information with others. I envision that the internet and other applications will someday make copyright law obsolete. With the invention of new 3D 'laser' printers, it is likely that patents will follow.

Stopping file sharing is unsustainable, but so is the effect of file sharing on our capitalist societies. I hope that the free market will eventually find a way of innovating without intellectual property; perhaps individuals will voluntarily fund 'invention companies' in the form of monthly fees, to facilitate the development of specific new inventions that - like all property - would go straight to the public domain.

In the meantime, respect other people's investments; their time and energy gone into creating our everyday products. Intellectual property is not permanent; inventors usually have about 20 years before their work goes into the public domain. Many of the medicines and technological advancements of today, would not have been possible without millions - sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment by companies to create them. These companies did not just mix steel and silver to get gold.

File sharing is Socialism 101 - wait for someone else to produce something, and then steal it.

this bill is going to reduce revenue for artists as their audience will shrink enormously...Internet piracy comes about by businesses failing to meet market demand for a product..

To Chris 218 and others saying "read the bill" let's start with the point, it is VERY EASY to spoof another persons' IP address.

From a technological point, the LAW being RUSHED is implying that TECHNICAL crimes are like physical crimes, solved by basic sleuthing.

THE PROBLEM WITH THIS ASSONINE LAW BEING PASSES IS THAT there is a very high likelihood that INNOCENT people will be CALLED AS THIEVES while thieves, who are experts with hacking wifi and spoofing IP addresses, remain free and happy.

Innocents LOSE internet access and get called to court, because today's government are run by TECHNICAL IGNORAMUSES.

Need I remind you that the technology we are referring to is far more subtle and powerful than say a masked man holding a knife. Perpetrators are hiding easily while BUSINESSES that FEEL infringement go after the SCAPE GOATS.

Today's NZ government is looking to find ways to control innocent far more than they are looking for ways to stop criminals.

to all the munters who voted national

told ya

This is exactly the problem with National.. they will never get my vote now

lol this bill is such a joke. Heavy p2p users won't get busted(as they have a clue) and some poor family will because Jimmy downloaded a couple of cds. Seedbox overseas + VPN for Torrents, Usenet + SSL. Problem solved.

you have to wonder how these "smart" leaders of New zealand come up with stuff like this. The country has just gone through a major earthquake, 2 in the last year, the government is looking at every possible way to slash spending and save a few bucks here and there at the expense of the people, is pushing out huge amounts of funds to bail out companies and yet, cutting back on legal aid yet somehow this becomes so important? is the amount spent here good value? thats nz leaders for ya!

@Gareth 240 and Christ 209 "we dont want decisions to be made by a vast majority of NZers as process is generally set up to do, we just want things to go through on the bare minimum that national will provide so as to let the issue keep coming up to be decided on in a marginal majority basis."