Today's final blackout protest - and we won, for now.
protest against s92a, how sites looked like this morning(click for full image, coypright:cc-by Creative Freedom Foundation).
UPDATE: It worked. About 4pm today the government has announced that it will delay the implementation of s92a til end of march. If there's still no agreement at that time then the act will be suspended.
Today many New Zealand sites, mostly blogs, but also some well known NZ sites like throng and scoop, have voluntarily blacked out their sites, cut access to all content on their sites to protest the to be effective Section 92A of the copyright act.
This kind of Internet protest is quite rare in NZ, especially when you consider the fact that political blogs from across the political specturm, from Act supporter to Green supporter have all joined this protest. Those people usually disagree with each other on everything, but in this instance, they had come together. It just shows you how deeply unpopular this S92A thing is among the people who really understand the Internet.
And no, those people are not youngsters who are just protesting because they will soon unable to illegally download pirated materials. I think it's bit sad that in some people's mind Internet is merely a place for email and news. Internet in my opinion, it is fast becoming another life necessity, part of people's basic right. It's like road, we, including criminals, all have the right to use public road, but you don't expect Ministry of Transport to police road users to see who's using the road network for illegal activities?
And National cannot get away with this. Yes it was passed under the previous government back in 2008, however, both Labour and National supported this law, and I quote from parliamentary record, Christopher Finlayson(National):
The Minister [Judith Tizard] knows, and I certainly know, that we have all had approaches from various commercial entities ...
I didn't fake anything nor took it out of context, this is not kidding. See what our politicians have become.
Well, one week to go, try to enjoy the freedom while it lasts.
