It may not be the file sharing or copyright infringement capital of the globe, but New Zealand is still taking the issue seriously by introducing a new law to stop people downloading movies and albums and robbing artists of honestly earned cash.

Except that the new law is such a ridiculous piece of legislation that we can’t quite believe it’s going to come into force. Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act will be introduced at the end of February 2009, and says that any individual who is even alleged to have shared files illegally can be disconnected from the internet.

The actual text of the law states that the ISP must ‘reasonably implement’ a policy of termination of the accounts of people who, ‘in appropriate circumstances’, repeatedly infringe copyrights. Except that there’s no definition of what either of these terms mean, which leaves the law open to interpretation from almost any direction, and could leave individual users open to abuse from ISPs or organisation protecting the rights of artists – whether there’s evidence for their file sharing or not.

They don’t even need any proof – merely an allegation.

There have been numerous lawsuits over the years that have seen the RIAA get the wrong end of the stick in spectacular fashion – accusing grandmothers of downloading songs that they’d never heard and the user who even offered to let authorities search her PC to prove that she had nothing to hide. At least that time the RIAA had some evidence, however misplaced, to back up its claims and bullying tactics of its lawyers.

All that’s needed now, though, is a suggestion that someone has, at one time, illegally downloaded their favourite song. And that’s it – you’ll be banned from the Internet because someone suspected you of downloading a tune. You’ll be instantly tarred with the P2P brush and guilty before having a chance to prove yourself as innocent.

Several groups have already sprung up opposing the new law in New Zealand. The Creative Freedom Foundation has launched a campaign against Section 92, with the founder of the campaign, Bronwyn Holloway-Smith, saying that ‘The result of this law could be that one rogue employee or even one virus infected computer could bring down a whole organisation’s internet and it’s highly likely that schools, businesses, hospitals, and phone services will be harmed.’ It’s certainly a tricky situation, and one that huge swathes of people on the other side of the world aren’t taking lightly.

The New Zealand government has said that this will become law unless there’s a major showing of public outrage – so it’ll probably end up happening anyway. At least in the past the RIAA and other organisations needed a shred of evidence to begin legal proceedings – however misplaced. It seems that, come the end of February, they won’t even need that anymore.