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Today on Radio New Zealand National I’ll talk about a whole list of things – not sure if I’ll get time for them all. I’m going to mention the rumours that IBM will buy Sun, talk about why you can’t use your mobile on the London Underground, how you can tell if your computer is infected, and about where the value lies in software, which is based on a blog post I made a few days ago. I’ll put some of my speaker notes and the links for the program behind the “more…” below.

Listen live at 11:05 or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

I’ve been involved in the campaign against Section 92A of the Copyright Act since before the election. On at least two occasions I’ve heard from journalists that someone they wouldn’t name was trying to plant stories linking anti-S92A activists with, of all things, child pornography. We gritted our teeth and ignored it.

Last weekend this all broke wide open. Video rental shops in the larger chains tried to get their customers to sign a petition demanding that S92A be retained. In one of the United Video shops around Hamilton, at least, video shop staff were telling customers that this petition was all about stopping child pornography. They were told to say that, they said, by their manager. (more…)

A short essay about value in software. Conclusion: CIOs and government need to take a very good look at free software for desktops and other generic software.
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Campbell Smith of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand, a body that represents some copyright holders in New Zealand, has written a column in the Herald saying that requiring people’s Internet providers to cut them off if they are accused of copyright infringement is a reasonable way to protect artists’ rights.
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This week on Radio New Zealand National I talk about the Colossus computers built by the British during the second world war. They were the first computer that we would recognise today as a general data-processing machine, and to compare one with a modern server room you wouldn’t think that computers had changed that much. Apart from the rows of glowing valves and the streams of high-speed paper tape, that is.

Read on for my speaking notes or download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

The government has just announced that it will delay S92a until at least the 27th of March, and will suspend it in any case until the Internet people and the copyright holders can agree. That’s fantastic, and victory for common sense.

Well done, everyone who has worked to get rid of this dreadful law! Special mentions go to Bronwyn and Matthew from the CFF and Nat Torkington from Foo. But most of all thanks to you – if you blacked out your avatar, or blogged about it, or wrote to an MP – good on you. You made a difference.

Woo-hoo!

Over on Geekzone, Juha Saarinen is running a great piece on why the last government ignored submissions and Bill of Rights considerations to ram this unjust law through. Apparently, it’s a requirement of a free trade deal with the US.

Let’s just pause and examine this. If the US want to change our law, how come they make it stronger than own? Answer: to build up public pressure for further tightening at home. And, why don’t our politicians come clean about this as the real reason for introducing the harshest law in the world? Answer: because they want to be able to blow their own trumpets for introducing an FTA without people realising they gave away our rights for it.

Even John Key thinks the law is draconian, not well-drafted, and pretty ropey. (His words, listen to the MP3 and skip forward to 8 min 20s.) He tries to blame Judith Tizard for the law. But he’s not rushing to fix it. UPDATE: The implementation has been delayed until 29th March. Well done for listening, John.

Australia got an FTA with the US. It was signed by politicians because they had to – they had already puffed it hard in the press and it would have been politically embarrassing not to. But it was signed against the advice of trade officials who realised that the FTA Australia was able to negotiate gave away more than it received in return, as it has since proved. Anyone think we could do better?

Before someone says how essential trade is – yes, of course it is. But a Free Trade Agreement is an oxymoron – either you have free trade or you don’t. And if you don’t, then an agreement might better be called a restricted trade agreement, because that is its effect. Perhaps it’s slightly less restricted than what went before.

If politicians deem it justified to legislate away New Zealanders’ rights to a handful of multinationals in exchange for improved trade, let’s have that debate. Don’t be shy, let’s get the costs and benefits out on the table. Then we can all discuss them. We may not all agree, but a least we all get to see what the balance is.

Or, if Juha and I are wrong that this is all about trade – let the government deny it publicly. Then, explain why we have to have this law when more New Zealand artists are members of the Creative Freedom Foundation than APRA.

Finally, Dylan Horrocks has drawn a fantastic cartoon – spread it far and wide!

Today on Radio New Zealand National I broadcast live from the Webstock conference In Wellington. This is an amazing event run by volunteers in Wellington every year. If your day to day business involves creating things on the web, you should definitely go.

I also talk about the social media blackout and the campaign to repeal S92a of the Copyright Act. Here’s where to download the audio as ogg or mp3. (more…)

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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