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Today is the day to turn up and tell politicians what you think of S92a of the Copyright Act. There’s a petition being handed in. Come by noon, and wear bright clothes!

You may have noticed sites turning black today. Black is what the New Zealand Internet could become if we don’t act now. Parliament has sold New Zealand Internet users down the river, and only Parliament can fix it.
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Today on Radio New Zealand National I talk about the dreadful piece of copyright that our last government foisted on us, and that, incredibly, the current one – which claims to ‘get’ the Internet to the extent of throwing a lot of our tax money at it – intends to implement regardless.

This really is bad. Nowhere else has implemented law which assumes people are guilty if they are accused. That’s because that’s contrary to natural justice. The UK government, for instance, has just announced that it has dropped consideration of a similar law. But we are gonig ahead. Is this the kind of way we want New Zealand to stand out – unjust law?

You can read on for the script, which I may or may not stick to, or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

There is now a Facebook group for people who don’t like S92A of the Copyright Act and think it should be got rid of as soon as possible.

In related news, New Zealand’s extreme copyright law has been picked up by BoingBoing and the Toronto Globe and Mail. And Brenda Wallace brings out even more of the essential unfairness of it all. That’s right, we have been sold down the river.

I am embarrassed to see that this is what New Zealand is famous for.

Update: a YouTube video on the absurdity of it all.

Further update: a great piece about abuse of copyright written by Lawrence Lessig is running on the Wall Street Journal.

Recently, Parliament passed into law some changes to the Copyright Act to account for the modern technological environment. Some of those changes were good, some bad, and I’ve blogged about them many times before.

But the most controversial change to the Copyright Act made was the insertion of section 92a, which says, in effect, that ISPs have to have a policy to implement cutting off people’s Internet if they are accused of repeatedly infringing copyright.

This is the first issue I have ever seen get the entire Internet and IT industry in agreement.

All the participants at the TVNZ / InternetNZ debate last month were asked about this issue. National’s Maurice Williamson agreed it was a bad thing and said he didn’t know why he had voted for it. David Cunliffe, Minister for ICT, said he would set up a meeting between Internet folks and ministers to discuss it. That meeting happened yesterday and these are my notes from it.

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Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about how you save sound and vision on a computer, and about how broadcasters like Radio New Zealand can make their programmes available over the Internet. And I talked about the importance of free formats, and announced that RNZ is now progressively making its content available in the free Ogg format. Great decision, guys.

Read on for my speaking notes or listen to the podcast. In Ogg.

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Richard Stallman is coming to New Zealand. For those that don’t know Richard, he’s the driving force behind free software. Apparently he’s a compelling speaker.

If you have any interest in software, or in intellectual property issues, he’d be well worth getting to hear. Check out his timetable. Alternatively, catch him on the radio on Saturday morning.

Computerworld is carrying an article about Mark Harris’s attempt to get more information about ACTA – a secret treaty that the New Zealand government has just finished calling for submissions on. The Government gave him 13 of the 91 documents he asked for, and crossed out material in most of those 13, as well. Mark has a lot more information on his site.

I talked about this on the radio a few weeks ago. And here’s my submission to the Government – which still hasn’t even been so much as acknowledged, over three weeks after I sent it.

Frankly, the potentialities here are scary – ACTA could do everything from killing off free software to stopping innovation on the Internet, but virtually all the information we have about it comes from leaked documents. Our government is negotiating in secret, and will probably end up giving away more of our rights like it did during the last Copyright Amendment Act.

This really is not good enough. Our government should have nothing to do with this, and we should all be telling them that. Now.

Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about a treaty called ACTA about which its hard to find any information. ACTA is being negotiated now by countries including New Zealand, and it has the potential to curb people’s privacy and their rights to use the Internet. MED has issued a call for submissions on what New Zealand’s negotiating position should be, although it has delayed answering an OIA request for more information until after the deadline of next Monday.

Does this affect you? Quite possibly it will if some well-funded lobbyists get their way. It’s clear that some want this treaty to impose DMCA-style laws across the world. This would effectively stop innovation in its tracks except when it was done by big companies. And the last New Zealand copyright law change pandered to the interests of the big players at the expense of the rest of us. (Read to the bottom of the linked page.)

Read on for my speaking notes, and for the address to send you emailed submission to. Or, listen to the podcast.
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Today on Radio New Zealand National I talked about electronic voting – why you might, why you might not, and why it probably won’t be coming here for a while. Read on for my notes and links (warning: hilarious video!) or listen to the podcast. (more…)