Q&A with the RIANZ CEO Campbell Smith

Forums › ICT Policies and Regulation › Q&A with the RIANZ CEO Campbell Smith

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richgamer

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#198874 3-Mar-2009 02:15

ok so you get 2 education notices/warnings. here is a scenario.
a 16year old boy downloads copyrighted material, he gets a warning in the post, hides it from his parents, gets another warning,hides it, then gets his family's internet connection cut off. now the family cannot use the internet. another scenario would be if the 16year old boy stayed home alone for 1 month while his parents went on holiday and he gets the warnings and internet cut off and his parents didn't even know. sure the billpayer is responsible for the internet, but he shouldn't be punished for something he didn't do. currently if a person's car is stolen, and the offender gets heaps of speed camera fines, the fines will be wiped if the car owner can prove his car was stolen and it wasn't the owner driving. but with s92a, there is no way to tell who was using the computer at the time,because windows login passwords can be easily hacked.

by the way, there is no way riaa can track what videos on youtube you watch or what radio streams you listen to because this info is stored on the website's server and riaa cannot use software to access this. the only way riaa can track you is if you use p2p software or bittorrent.

by the way, anyone know how dynamic ip addresses work? if a person with an ip of 123.456.789 downloads copyrighted material on wednesday, but on thursday the 123.456.789 ip is assigned to another customer, how does the isp know who was using the ip on the previous day? how long do isps store these records for and how far back do they go?

richms

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#198897 3-Mar-2009 09:41

timestamps on their authentication logs, and in the ISPs i have worked at and with, its being stored for a very very long time. I can recall looking back over a year to see them.

Worst case you just say you are a downstream ISP and that it must have being a user that used it and they paid cash. Last I checked there was no requirement to check the ID of anyone using the internet at those sorts of places. Certainly isnt with the overpriced auckland city hotspots, just a credit card...

Richard rich.ms

Talkiet

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#198901 3-Mar-2009 09:53

richms: Last I checked there was no requirement to check the ID of anyone using the internet at those sorts of places. Certainly isnt with the overpriced auckland city hotspots, just a credit card...

Might be a requirement soon :-)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

kent

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#198922 3-Mar-2009 11:12

Yes - he didn't answer one my questions relating to this and is still a big hole is this legislative seive of theirs.

"How are RIANZ going to prevent terminated users from signing up again under a false identity, different ISP, different residence, etc? Are we going to have to provide passports and birth certificates to our ISP's now?"

The downstream ISP argument is interesting - If valid, potentially everyone could become a home business providing this service.

As for Tizards evidence that a recording studio with spare time is evidence of piracy... LOL - I bet; 1. They put up their prices since they were busy, 2. Technology advances allow more artists to do this themselves, 3. We are in a recession, 4. They no longer have their market point of difference due to competition.
Loose 10% on each of these points and there's your 40% downturn.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4865281a28.html

Well Judith, I also see a need for an update to this legislation but what I disagree with is a loosely worded pile of crap that undermines basic human rights, leaves a huge door open for unfettered abuse, and introduces unnecessary risk and burden to NZ businesses (and in turn consumers).

I am also very concerned, passing this could also set a precedence for other industries in regards to human rights and privacy.
Car manufacturers responsible for speeding cars, issuing infringements and disabling vehicles?
Gunshops responsible for misuse of weapons
Boatshops responsible for monitoring fishing quotas
Liquor outlets responsible for alcohol abuse

Make a change but get it right.

-KENT

freitasm

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#198967 3-Mar-2009 14:19

richgamer: .... by the way, there is no way riaa can track what videos on youtube you watch or what radio streams you listen to because this info is stored on the website's server and riaa cannot use software to access this. the only way riaa can track you is if you use p2p software or bittorrent.

Folks, please read the answers again. Campbell is with the RIANZ. He doesn't work for the RIAA and is not able to answer for the RIAA.

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jpollock

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#198976 3-Mar-2009 15:20

You are strictly correct. Mr Smith cannot speak about the RIAA. However, the RIANZ is a proxy for the large media organisations, so there is substantial cross-over between the two in terms of motivations and behaviours.

I fully expect that Mr Smith will be directed by his board to make use of MediaSentry to police S92A. This will happen because the member companies already have a relationship with MediaSentry, and MediaSentry already has the necessary tools. The level of readiness is obvious in Mr Smith's comments about "atomic clocks". That can only mean that the investigative organisation is already in place with their automated systems already working and tested.

As evidence, consider the board of the RIANZ:
http://www.rianz.org.nz/rianz/rianz_about_rianzboard.asp
Universal Music NZ
Warner Music NZ
Sony BMG Music Entertainment
Stebbing Recording Centre
Dirty Records

and the board of the RIAA:
http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php?content_selector=who_we_are_board
EMI Recorded Music (3 seats)
Sony Music (5 seats)
Interscope Records
Universal Music Group (3 seats)
The Atlantic Group
Warner Bros Records
Warner Music Group (2 seats)
Buena Vista Music
Concord Music Group
Curb Records
Koch Entertainment
Tommy Boy Entertainment
Island Records
Wind Up Records

Both organisations are dominated, as they should be, by the large recording companies. Mr Smith can definitely not claim that the RIANZ is independent of the large media organisations, any more than the RIAA can. Since the RIANZ is not independent, the RIAA is certainly a perfect example of the behaviour we can expect.

An interview that Wired Magazine did with Hilary Rosen after her time at the RIAA provides an indication of how much latitude the RIAA has in these matters (none). These organisations do not create policy, they are proxies for their members - as they should be.

Rosen: Well, I've learned what I've always suspected -- that it's easier to talk about it than it is to do it.

Look, I think the business has evolved, sometimes not as quickly and not as aggressively as some of us would have liked, but I certainly think the folks at RIAA are doing a good job and doing the best they can do. People also ought to know, the RIAA doesn't call the policy shots. The record companies do.

One thing that was always clear to me was that people sort of blamed the RIAA for essentially being good at their job and that's certainly not a bandwagon I ever want to jump on.

---
http://blog.jason.pollock.ca

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Dratsab

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#199039 3-Mar-2009 20:09

Why is a performance licence required for business areas to have the radio playing in the background?

Campbell Smith (RIANZ): A licence is required because copyright legislation provides rightholders with the right to licence music for this use. And that is because businesses use music as a resource to attract customers. Independent research has shown time and again that playing music attracts customers, keeps them in a store longer and increases the amount of money they spend.

Further research has shown that music can boost productivity and employee wellbeing. Businesses can choose not to play music on premises, but they choose to play it because they know it is effective in creating an atmosphere that draws people in.

Here in New Zealand, PPNZ (RIANZ licensing arm) has a public performance licence for premises playing recorded music only (not radio broadcasts), whereas APRA has a public performance licence for premises playing radio and sound recordings. You don't need a PPNZ licence for playing the radio in your business premises.

As the Q&A session wasn't focused entirely on s92A, I'm going to step aside aside from that for a moment and look at this statement. While it's gratifying that a PPNZ licence isn't required for a business to play a radio broadcast in the workplace, an APRA (Australasian Performing Rights Association) licence is. This seems rather incongruous to me as a radio broadcast is already licensed by the broadcasting company.

This is plainly a case of double-dipping. Money is taken from the broadcaster to allow them to play content, which by the way they make money from by attracting listeners and thus downstream advertising revenue. Money is also being required from business premises because it's a "public place" - I'm alluding to the recent hairdressing salon story here.

That salon doesn't charge people to come and listen to the radio broadcasts, and it's almost a certainty that it doesn't attract customers based on what radio station it happens to be tuned into. What I see here is local artists missing out on sales opportunities because of an obtuse attitude.

Businesses either turning off radios or tuning into internet webcasts (with probably no NZ content) will do more harm to music sales (especially that of local artists) than fairly much anything else I can think of. This comes about through people simply not having the exposure to it than they might otherwise have had.

But that's OK, lets expose our libraries, schools and public access points to the potential for legal action being taken against them for something they simpy can't control, despite the huge sums of money they're going to have to spend to implement strategies/technologies to do so...

peteremcc

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#199078 3-Mar-2009 23:17

"hyperlinking to infringing content can constitute copyright infringement"

does this require a reply? oh and... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KfJHFWlhQ
"The evidence gathering techniques used will download and verify copyright material already being offered publicly and will not involve entrapment at any stage."
anyone care to create their own content, make it look like it's copyright, and then ask for RIANZ to be disconnected when they download it to check whether it's copyright or not?

Spenser

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#199130 4-Mar-2009 10:01

It seems that the entertainment industry is pushing the same laws in France:

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/02/23/french-legislature-puts-finishing-touches-on-ambitious-file-sharing-law/

(I hope geekzoners can open this link - apparently Mr Smith is not able to do that).

The Irish ISP Eircomm has also been in the news lately with the same issue.

The path of the French law will be interesting to follow given their propensity for social unrest when their rights are threatened.

At least the French are proposing a government agency to enforce the complaints.

Sad that the entertainment industry did not spend the lobby money on developing a better online delivery model to negate the piracy... or on developing talented musicians and not just the pretty bimbos (male and female) that they promote as talent.

freitasm

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#199153 4-Mar-2009 11:20

Spenser: It seems that the entertainment industry is pushing the same laws in France:

And then they bust the French President for copyright infringement...

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stevenz

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#200449 10-Mar-2009 18:24

richms: Completely ignoring the s92a questions, here are mine...

For many years now the quality of commercially mastered music has being deteriorating to the point where what comes on a CD now is pretty much undistinguishable from something being put thru a mixing desk well into the red, this is commonly referred to online as the loudness race. If I am to spend a large amount of money getting content legally, I would expect a reasonable level of technical expertise be applied in the mixing and mastering of the content, clipping and high levels of compression are not what I expect to get. Why would I pay for content at a store, when the lousy production values make it indistinguishable from a low bitrate warez scene release, and I dont get much enjoyment listening to it because of fatigue because of the poor quality?

Has there been any attempt at justification from anyone official anywhere about this? I've got a few recent CDs which have audible clipping, crackling and of course, the Metallica album which is virtually unlistenable through any sort of decent speakers/headphones. As far as I'm concerned it's much the same as selling a faulty product, it's not _supposed_ to sound "broken" by the original intent, but during the course of production, it has become so due to marketing intent.

Mr. Smiths S92A answers all sound very reasonable, but it's the omissions, side-stepping and generalisations which are going to be what causes the issues at the end of the day.

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