Rights holders, seeing how unpopular their ideas were, headed down a darker path; rather than give up on government help for such schemes, they worked to get them through with limited public debate. New Zealand’s revised law, which began with the presumption that the accused were in fact infringers, was pushed through in 2011 under urgency rules in the wake of the major Christchurch earthquake. In the United Kingdom, the Digital Economy Act laid the groundwork for a similar scheme and had to be passed during a hurried wash-up session with little discussion just before new elections in 2010.
~ Nate Anderson
