This is what Melissa Lee, National List MP sent out on her Twitter account, just a day before her comments during the parliamentary session discussing the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill:

"Ok. Shower... Reading ... And then bed! listening to a compilation a friend did for me of K Pop. Fab. Thanks Jay."

This just show that the concept of copyright is not well understood around. This is important, because the bill assumes an infringement notice is correct, and the accused is guilty by default. And if not even the MPs can clearly understand what is infringement and avoid it, how could we trust organisations with money interests to act in a truthful way after such a bill passes?

(1) In proceedings before the Tribunal, in relation to an infringement notice, it is presumed:
(a) that each incidence of file sharing identified in the notice constituted an infringement of the right owner's copyright in the work identified;
(b) that the information recorded in the infringement notice is correct;
(c) that the infringement notice was issued in accordance with this Act.
(2) An account holder may submit evidence that, or give reasons why, any 1 or more of the presumptions in subsection (1) do not apply with respect to any particular infringement identified in an infringement notice.
(3) If an account holder submits evidence or gives reasons as referred to in subsection (2), the rights owner must satisfy the Tribunal that, in relation to the relevant infringement or notice, the particular presumption or presumptions are correct.

UPDATE: in a later tweet we read "lol. Does it count if the friend is the composer?"

Good question. It would also be interesting to know if those files were transferred over the Internet, or were moved from one storage device to another directly. Did said friend provide evidence of transferring ownership rights?

UPDATE: As noted by some readers, even if the composer is a friend, there are copyright in place for other pieces of the work  such as performer, publisher, etc.

UPDATE: Melissa Lee told the New Zealand Herald all songs on the compilation had been legally downloaded and paid for. But the copyright law allows format shift only for members of the same household. Does her friend live with her? If not, did her friend received permission to distribute copies of this content?

The New Zealand Parliament today rushed the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill through an urgent session that was intended to discuss Christchurch-related quake legislation.

Talk about low blow. Using urgent sessions to rush a legislation that will make allegation effective proof of wrong doing. Just read the new version of this bill:

122MA Infringement notice as evidence of copyright infringement
(1) In proceedings before the Tribunal, in relation to an infringement notice, it is presumed:
(a) that each incidence of file sharing identified in the notice constituted an infringement of the right owner's copyright in the work identified;
(b) that the information recorded in the infringement notice is correct;
(c) that the infringement notice was issued in accordance with this Act.
(2) An account holder may submit evidence that, or give reasons why, any 1 or more of the presumptions in subsection (1) do not apply with respect to any particular infringement identified in an infringement notice.
(3) If an account holder submits evidence or gives reasons as referred to in subsection (2), the rights owner must satisfy the Tribunal that, in relation to the relevant infringement or notice, the particular presumption or presumptions are correct.

From the very start whoever is being accused of infringing copyright is automatically guilty. It's up to the accused to provide evidence that this is not the case. The "rights owner" doesn't have to have prove anything to start with. It's enough to accuse someone.

Previously, S92A caused the New Zealand Internet Blackout, with the government then postponing the enactment of that law. This new version is even worse.

We are not talking about the right or wrong of copyright. But watching the Parliament TV stream is clear that our noble MPs have no idea of what file sharing is, how it relates to copyright infringement, and what exactly is being protected. It is also interesting to note the links some MPs, mainly from the Green Party, make between this piece of legislation and free trade agreement negotiations.

Some more information on Tech Liberty blog, NBR's "Internet file sharing bill under urgency today", Rick Shera's blog. Also a discussion on this is going on Geekzone.

As for J'accuse in the title, it is a reference to an open letter written by Emile Zola, published in 13 January 1898. The letter accused the French government of anti-semitism and unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, sentenced for espionage. Emile Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence in the process.

Every analyst in the tech industry seem to be talking about Google +1, Google's new feature that allows users to share search results in their profiles.

If you don't have it in your search results you can enable it now by creating a Google Profile, then going to the Google Experimental web page and adding +1 to the list of experimental features. Obviously Google +1 will only appear on result pages when you are logged in to a Google account.

What I've not seen discussed yet is how your Google +1 listings can be used for advertising. The only two references to this I could find was when I tried my first +1 my first link:

Note the checkbox next to "Use my information to personalize content and ads across the web." (the bold is mine).

Hmmm. So I can stop personalizing content but this will also stop personalizing ads. But what is "personalize content" anyway? It seems, reading the Google +1 Privacy Policy that Google intends to allow third party web sites to suggest links based in your profile. Which is ok, but why this feature and ad personalisation are bundled together?

I've just found an image showing what happens when you "+1" an advert (why would one do that?), thanks to Search Engine Land:

Also, why is Google using "greengrocers apostrophe's"to indicate +1 plurals, as in +1's everywhere?

What is this Google +1 good for? There's some more information in the Google +1 Button page, saying "In order to +1 things, you first need a public Google profile. This helps people see who recommended that tasty recipe or great campsite. When you create a profile, it's visible to anyone and connections with your email address can easily find it."

If I recall correctly people don't visit Google Profile pages like they visit Facebook.

Google Social Results are powered by all your social network connections, as defined in your Google Profile, but only your Google-based connections are currently used when matching +1 recommendations to Google Search results.

You also get a Page Not Found if you try to follow the "personalization on sites across the web" like present in that page. It seems Google released something that will be up there with Google Buzz...

I found out today that both Telecom New Zealand (1) and Vodafone New Zealand (2) have discontinued their services to Funmobile, a company that provides customers with "entertainment" Premium SMS services.

Premium SMS services are those short codes used to either subscribe to a service, enter a competition, provide feedback, etc.

Funmobile is just one of the services offering "entertainment" over SMS. In theory the interested users visit a website, enters their mobile number, and receives a SMS asking for a reply to confirm the subscription. If you want to stop receiving these Premium SMS you can reply "STOP" to their number.

The "entertainment" can be anything really, such as mobile ringtones, horoscopes, etc. They are recurring, sometimes multiple SMS a week, with prices varying from a few cents each, up to a few dollars. This sure drains some people's account very quickly.

On account customers can see where their money is going to, but prepay customers don't have a bill with detailed description of charges, so most of the times they only see their balance going away every week...

Some people should know better, read the small fineprint, etc.

But then there are those who got involved without knowing, or understanding what was going on. For example people who authorised third party Facebook applications to access their profile when participating of a promotion, or people who got caught by scammers running sites that pretend to be YouTube offering a competition.

I heard some cases of people who bought brand new prepaid SIM cards, and their numbers were already subscribed to these services. Obviously the previous owner got sick of the charges, got a new number, and let the old one lapse. The operators just put the recycled number back in the pool and someone got unlucky.

Regardless, it's something for years people have been posting on Geekzone. While it's all well and legal for mobile operators to put the blame on customers (who should know better), things happen. We know some people won't read the fineprint. And that's where these "entertainment services" make their money. And it's not moral.

I posted about this back in August 2009, asking operators to stop doing business with this companies. It took only a year and half, but now they have done the right thing.

Good job. The mobile operators provide a good service in New Zealand, but they should go beyond the technical side of things, and make sure their infrastructure is not used to take money out of their customers' accounts.Here are some posts about this scam:

Text Message Scam

Rogue SMS Subscription Services and Vodafone

YouTube ripped me off

Another server, another 9,000 credit card numbers in the wild

TUANZ CEO says Vodafone rural coverage is not optimal

Hotmail Sucks rap

Bing got served

Internet traffic in Egypt drops

The Southern Cross Cable in a frame

What's the Southern Cross Cable? It's a submarine cable linking New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and the U.S. (Hawaii and mainland). It's owned by Telecom New Zealand (50%), SingTel (40%) and Verizon Business (10%).

Here is a framed picture I got today in the mail:



Of course it doesn't look like that at all... But you get the idea.