Photo ‘pirated’ from NZlive.com
Former New Zealand Labour minister Judith Tizard is hell-bent on making a complete ass of herself in the newspapers in support of a completely unworkable and anti-democratic piece of legislation that would force Internet Service Providers to stop taking money from customers that were accused of copyright infringement.
She says a lot of stupid things about how internet users are pirates and ‘childish’, but perhaps the most offensive and ignorant non-sequitur of the lot is: “The right to use the internet is a vital one, but libraries can provide it.”
But one gets the feeling that even if the words are her own, the sentiment – and, one imagines, the instigation – comes direct from the head of RIANZ, New Zealand’s equivalent to the RIAA and the BPI.
This is one of those industry trade bodies that insists on doing the absolute worst thing for the industry by arguing vehemently for protection of the status quo at all costs. Seth Godin had interesting things to say about such trade bodies earlier today.
The anti-consumer, anti-citizen, anti-technology and anti-innovation stance of these kinds of bodies are just about comprehensible if you factor in large quantities of fear and wholesale personality defects, but there’s no excuse for a politician (even a lapsed one) to simply spout the propaganda of lobbyists – even (or especially) if they do it in such a ham-fisted and cognitively-impaired fashion as Tizard has managed.
No New Zealand musician has asked for S92a. What’s at stake are the commercial interests of multinational corporations and a free trade agreement with the USA is what’s on the table.
There’s the opportunity here for a New Zealand politician (I’m looking at you, Steven Joyce) to seize the moment and draw a ‘No Nukes‘ style line in the sand.
Here’s what you say:
Screw the pressure groups and the lobbyists. Bugger the free trade agreement if that’s what it’ll cost. We have the opportunity as well as both the technological and economic imperative to rewrite the copyright laws from scratch, and we’re going to do it in a way that will incentivise rather than lock down creativity.
We’re going to do what’s right for the intellectual cultural capital of New Zealanders, for the citizens, artists, creators and scientists of New Zealand – and not just in the service of safeguarding the massive but dwindling domains of the major corporate entertainment giants.
We don’t know what copyright will look like when we’re done, but we’re going to start with first principles by asking “What’s important?” and “To what end?” at every step of the game. We’ll let you know when we’re done.
In the meantime, stay out of our waters on this one.
And when you have that conversation, there’s no need to invite Tizard. She clearly has nothing helpful or intelligent to say on these matters.
We’re fortunate we have Tizard there to help us analyse the issues and cut through the crap and get to the heart of the issue.
“One of the big recording studios” is not as busy as they were a couple of years ago. To a layperson, that would indicate anything from a suggestion that their rates are too steep, or perhaps that thanks to advancements in technology and computing power, more and more people are going down the home-studio route.
But no, apparently music piracy is to blame.
In regards to the free trade argument, heres some analysis from a lawyer which suggests that the new NZ Copyright Act is worse than what the US has. http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/6270
So, a free trade agreement where we get the US copyright law forced on us would be a marginal improvement.
Ignorance is bliss Ms Tizard, but for those of us who have to live in the real world and who depend on the internet for their livelihoods, could you please refrain from joining a debate that you clearly know nothing about?!
This is the former “Minister for Auckland” talking, who was hardly ever heard to utter a word on any of the many issues affecting Auckland. I don’t regard her as an authority on anything in particular.
Obviously, the public recording studio at Palmerston North City Library has poached all that high-fee-paying clientele…onya, Palmy.
Just like your water, the right to have clean safe water to your home is vital, but swimming pools can provide it too…
Actually, I don’t think I would want to drink swimming pool water, do you think the library would mind if I rocked up with my tanks to fill them up from the restroom? Do they have public showers at the library too?
What I’d love to see is a Copyright Act wiki so all interested parties could enter into a discussion about what a good copyright act should look like. The major success of S92a is that people got interested… It would be great if the govt took that interest and actually worked with it to draft an act that actually made sense…
I tried going for a week without the Internet. It didn’t work!
The Internet has changed the way we consume many things (like music and information), but I don’t think there are too many people that would willingly go back to the way it was before.