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As Australian authorities try to work out how to tackle the illegal downloading of music and video content, the Kiwis have come up with a three strikes policy that appears to be working.Under the new laws, introduced last year, pirates are warned twice and can be fined up $11,800 if they’re caught illegally downloading music, movies or TV shows from the internet again. The laws have seen a drop despite 4 out of every 10 New Zealanders still flouting the law.
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) says 2,766 infringement letters had been issued, yet only a handful of offenders had gone on to receive their third strike. None have yet been fined.
RIANZ says, as a result, the number of top-200 movies illegally viewed dropped from 110,000 to just 50,000 in September 2011; one month after the policy was introduced in August
The BBC claims that RIANZ wants more letters to be sent out to offending parties and hopes to achieve that by cutting the cost of sending them out.
In the UK, ministers are still pondering how to combat online piracy. Warning letter and fines were agreed in the Digital Economy Act, but it remains unclear whether that bill will ever become law.
It seems that, in recent months, the focus has switched back towards shutting down and blocking prominent download portals, such as The Pirate Bay, rather than looking to punish individual offenders.
