Rubénerd!

Hope you had a properous Queen's Birthday, if you were in [most of] Australia. Folks in WA, the UK, Canada and New Zealand already had theirs. As I said in 2009:

Don’t you just love living in a commn [sic] sense monarchy? :)

Dang typos. Speaking of mistakes, I'm also 99% sure that isn't a picture of Her Majesty. Maybe someone from Ireland can help me out, didn't she just visit you?

The draconian three strikes bill we were all hoping wouldn't pass... did. The full text of this bill can be found on the New Zealand Government's Legislation website. For the sake of brevity, I'll be commenting on Clarice Africa's FutureGov article. Pardon my rage!

Could the timing be any more blatant?

A bill that puts in place a three-notice regime to deter illegal file sharing has just been passed in Parliament.

And along with it a further erosion of New Zealand sovereignty to the United States and its media cartels.

The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill repeals Section 92A of the Copyright Act and replaces it with a new process to deal with online copyright infringements, said Commerce Minister Simon Power in an official statement.

In other words, a New Zealand law has been replaced with a faulty international one that would make Nicolas Sarkozy proud.

The bill includes a power for a district court to suspend an internet account for up to six months, in appropriate circumstances. However, this element of the legislation will not be brought into force unless the notice process and the remedies by the Copyright Tribunal are ineffective.

Fortunately we can take a small measure of comfort from the fact it defines the suspension in terms of an "internet account", so the alleged offender could just use internet somewhere else. While representing a substantial threat to civil liberties in New Zealand, ultimately its unenforceable and worthess.

The three-notice regime involves ISPs sending warning notices to their customers informing them they may have infringed copyright. The legislation also extends the jurisdiction of the Copyright Tribunal so it provides an efficient, low-cost process to hear illegal file-sharing claims. The tribunal will be able to make awards of up to $15,000 based on damage sustained by the copyright owner.

They "may" have infringed copyright. I suppose the presumption of innocence until proven guilty and due process aren't "efficient" nor "low cost".

Sam Power-To-The-Media-Cartels

Clarice Africa now quotes communications minister Steven Power, or Stanley Power, or whatever his name his:

"Online copyright infringement has been damaging for the creative industry, which has experienced significant declines in revenue as file sharing has become more prevalent.

Evidence of damage and causation please.

"This legislation will discourage illegal file sharing and provide more effective measures to help our creative industries enforce their copyright" he said.

Evidence of potential alleged effectiveness please.

Power added that the regime will be effective starting on the 1st of September 2011.

As well as the threat to New Zealand's sovereignty and the appalling trampling of the rights of our friends across the Tasman with funny accents, frankly the timing is disgusting as well. Using a national tragedy to distract people and push through such a draconian law is despicable. In the context of where the bill was past this quote from my grandfather seems partifucularly apt: if you played a roll in passing this bill, may the bees of a thousand hives nest in your armpits.

Photo of Bowen House, the Beehive and Parliament in Wellington by Midnighttonight on Wikimedia Commons.

Revolutions, unrest and violence in Northern Africa and the Middle East, and now news of a huge earthquake and not one but nine aftershocks in Christchurch before they've even had enough time to recover from their last quake. Jeepers.

Sending positive thoughts, for whatever that's worth.

Also helps to put our own problems into perspective, doesn't it?

Would that be beef wellington? I suppose if it's in New Zealand it must be a mutton wellington right? Tee and as well as that hee!

In all seriousness though, I'd love to visit Wellington. I've been to Auckland for an afternoon (long story) but that's it. Maybe it's just because I'm hungry.

For those of you also living in a so called Commonwealth Realm, a jolly good, merry, happy and prosperous Queen's Birthday to you!

Here in Australia (except for WA) we have the day off on the second monday of June which happens to be today. According to infallable Wikipedia, Canadians have the day off on the 24th of May, people in the United Kingdom have it on the first, second or third Saturday in June, and New Zealanders on the first Monday of June. I suspect many of her other realms have holidays for this:

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

None of these dates though are the Queen's actual birthday. Don't you just love living in a commn sense monarchy? :) I know I know, the holiday wasn't meant for Queen Elizabeth II and is by convention not by her actual birth date, but still!

My avatar for my Twitter profile as of yesterday

With all the lunacy surrounding Senator Conroy's hopelessly misguided crusade against the intertubes in Australia which even if we were to ignore the social implications it still technologically wouldn't ever work... we're now reminded that our friendly neighbours over to the east in New Zealand are also having to deal with nonsense. Simply replace "failed before it even starts filter" with "guilty when accused".

It really is blood chillingly scary stuff.

From the Creative Freedom New Zealand site:

Join The New Zealand Internet Blackout to protest against the Guilt Upon Accusation law ‘Section 92A' that calls for internet disconnection based on accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without any evidence held up to court scrutiny. This is due to come into effect on February 28th unless immediate action is taken by the National Party.

I think what really gets to me with all this nonsense is the thought that some law makers in Australia and now New Zealand have obviously heard these ideas and written up legislation and proposals which means... they thought they were good ideas.

Normally I like to think of myself as a [mostly] rational person, but it's hard to be cool and level headed when nonsense like this comes up. I'm already not feeling very well, and this just makes me feel worse.

I'm an Aussie by birth and given both of our countries were once British we still have those Union Jack thingys on our flags.

Apparently the redesigned New Zealand flag though still retains the Union Jack, but includes something 100% Pure New Zealand!:

Okay okay, I'm an Aussie and I couldn't help myself :D.

We finally have cable TV in Malaysia (CNN Asia Pacific, free to air TV in Australia, Singapore and Malaysia), Rubenerd Left Wing (American sugar-coated politics, liberation, democracy etc), Elke calling Ruben a dork, bagging out New Zealand accents (again!) and congratulations to the women of Kuwait for getting the vote! News clips from CNN and the Brock Log, found through Technorati.

Download MP3 ↓ 10:00 minutes, 6.4MiB

You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive page.