Internet Blackout

[ruthytoothy]

I woke up this morning to find that Stephen Fry's fizzog had disappeared from my Tweetdeck and been replaced by a black square. Being only half awake, and only having installed Tweetdeck on Saturday, my first thought was "oh great, I've broken it!", but on reading further I realised that the Blackout is entirely intentional. It seems* that a law has been passed in New Zealand under which any user can have their internet connection severed purely on the basis of an accusation of copyright infringement. It also seems* that now, in NZ, "under the new law, anyone who provides any form of services over the Internet is an ISP. That means libraries, councils, schools, businesses, government offices, you name it. If you share your Internet connection with your flatmates, you're probably an ISP too under the new act." This all strikes me as rather worrying, and as Elpie pointed out in the comments over at Geekzone , "This is NOT a local, New Zealand-only issue. When any government enacts laws such as this other governments use it as an example to follow. If NZ does not repeal S.92A and S.92C, or put them on hold to revisit, its only a matter of time before your governments start using New Zealand as an example."

It is for this reason that I've blacked out my user icon here, and on other sites, and will continue to do so until the campaign ends on the 23rd.

* I must confess that I haven't read the legislation in question myself, so I don't actually know whether the interpretation given on Geekzone is accurate, but since they've stated they've consulted a lawyer versed in IP legislation, I'm inclined to believe them.