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New Zealand court hands out second peppercorn downloading penalty

Kiwi freetards have no taste whatever

New Zealand’s Copyright Tribunal has handed down its second decision under that country’s controversial “SkyNet” anti-downloading legislation.

Once again, the tribunal has imposed a fine considerably less than that sought by the country’s music industry lobby, RIANZ (the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand). Asked to slap the unnamed 50-year-old defendant with a NZ$1,681 penalty, the tribunal instead fined the defendant NZ$557.

His defence was that BitTorrent was downloaded by his children, which seems plausible since the two songs for which he was punished were Coldplay’s Paradise and Kesha’s We R Who We R, according to Stuff.

Under the New Zealand regime, RIANZ notifies an ISP when it believes illegal downloading is taking place. The ISP then sends three notices to the customer. If no acceptable response is received, the case is escalated to the Copyright Tribunal.

The defendant claimed financial difficulties. Most of the fine was in the form of costs and penalties, with a fee of just $7.17 to pay for the actual songs.

This case follows a case handed down at the end of January, in which similar fine was imposed for an individual who had downloaded Rhianna’s Man Down and Hot Chelle Ray’s Tonight Tonight.

The New Zealand Herald reports that RIANZ has so far spent NZ$250,000 pursuing pirates in that country. Its return so far of NZ$1,200 suggests a hot tip at the horse-races would yield a better return.

RIANZ has also told NZ Radio it believes installing a BitTorrent client is proof that an individual is sharing files illegally. ®

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