By Drew Wilson
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) finally convicted its first file-sharer under the now tested New Zealand three strikes law. While RIANZ may be feeling satisfied it got a result, the money spent may raise some questions over the effectiveness of such a law.
We’ve been covering the developments of the New Zealand three strikes law for close to a month now. When we reported on the first conviction, one of the things we discussed is the possible similarities between the Skynet law and HADOPI – particularly how the balance sheet didn’t look pretty for HADOPI. Now, today, New Zealand media is reporting on exactly this topic. Apparently, in order to get to this point in time, RIANZ spent a quarter of a million dollars to send out copyright violation notices. Since RIANZ has only gotten one conviction, the rewards for spending that money came to a grand total of $616.57 in fines.
