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Cameron McKechnie pointed out in a Facebook comment on Will Marshall's journal :
I thought surely this can't be right ? Surely the bill would define file-sharing more accurately?
But no. Here's the definition of file sharing from the relevant section 122A :
and
The internet is itself a "network" that "enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users", a web server is also an "application" that "enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users", and in order to read a web page, the web browser must "download" the page. There is no clause that says the "application" in question must be on the infringer's machine, or that the term "network" excludes the web or the internet itself.
This means any viewing of web pages that do not explicitly give the user permission to copy them automatically constitutes an infringement under this poorly draughted law.
There doesn't even need to be an explicit copyright statement on the page to trigger this, as under the Berne convention copyright automatically applies. In fact, only an explicit statement of permisison to copy, in one form or another, will make your web content legally readable by the masses. So, seeing as I'm not a bastard :
NZ File-sharing Law Makes Using Your Browser An Infringement
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
There are no further clarifications or restrictions of these statements in the rest of the bill. Probably because the representatives of commercial rights-holder organizations didn't want to be restricted by any more specific definitions that would later become obsolete. But in their desire to have maximum coverage, they have effectively created a law that is too general to ever be workable, and one which can be used against them, because in order for them to discover a file-sharing infringement, they will have to go onto the web and infringe the law themselves.
Yes that's right viewing a web page breaks this copy right law, let alone any activity that results in a client side cache like browsers and etc. Lets take it the other way and build a web server that stores the MAC address and starting going after anyone that looks at it (company or individual) and get sure there's several and its all legal and sweet as rain by the new copyright law about to become effective. Legal to then Copyright Trolling in New Zealand and sure bets the hell out of Patent Trolling like they have in the US.
I thought surely this can't be right ? Surely the bill would define file-sharing more accurately?
But no. Here's the definition of file sharing from the relevant section 122A :
“file sharing is where—
“(a) material is uploaded via, or downloaded from, the Internet using an application or network that enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users; and
“(b) uploading and downloading may, but need not, occur at the same time
“infringement means an incidence of file sharing that involves the infringement of copyright in a work, or part of a work, by a user
The internet is itself a "network" that "enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users", a web server is also an "application" that "enables the simultaneous sharing of material between multiple users", and in order to read a web page, the web browser must "download" the page. There is no clause that says the "application" in question must be on the infringer's machine, or that the term "network" excludes the web or the internet itself.
This means any viewing of web pages that do not explicitly give the user permission to copy them automatically constitutes an infringement under this poorly draughted law.
There doesn't even need to be an explicit copyright statement on the page to trigger this, as under the Berne convention copyright automatically applies. In fact, only an explicit statement of permisison to copy, in one form or another, will make your web content legally readable by the masses. So, seeing as I'm not a bastard :
NZ File-sharing Law Makes Using Your Browser An Infringement
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
There are no further clarifications or restrictions of these statements in the rest of the bill. Probably because the representatives of commercial rights-holder organizations didn't want to be restricted by any more specific definitions that would later become obsolete. But in their desire to have maximum coverage, they have effectively created a law that is too general to ever be workable, and one which can be used against them, because in order for them to discover a file-sharing infringement, they will have to go onto the web and infringe the law themselves.
