Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

[Bronwyn Holloway-Smith <bronwyn AT holloway.co.nz>]

Hi folks,

Apologies for cross-posting.

As you may be aware, the NZ government (via National's Steven Joyce) 
have recently announced they plan to go ahead with the Guilt Upon 
Accusation law Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act. This law will 
results in New Zealanders facing punishment before a trial and before 
any evidence has been held up to court scrutiny (guilty until proven 
innocent). This is obviously sad news but it isn't set in stone. 
Interestingly, since this announcement was made the UK have backed away 
from their S92A-like law due to /"impracticalities and complexities"/, 
while in New Zealand many people have urgently written letters to their MPs.

If you haven't already done it we're calling TODAY as the day to act.

Write a letter to Ministers Steven Joyce and Chris Finlayson. Here are 
their contacts:
http://beehive.govt.nz/minister/steven+joyce
http://chrisfinlayson.co.nz/index.php?/pages/contact.html

Examples of letters can be found here: 
http://creativefreedom.org.nz/forum/topic.php?id=73 (more will be posted 
throughout the day). Of course this should be in your own words and it 
doesn't need to be a long letter: you could mention the number of people 
that you speak for and their interests, whether you condone copyright 
infringement that takes money away from artists, whether you think 
Section 92A is appropriate for New Zealand, and perhaps examples of 
alternatives such as new business models.

Many thanks,
Bronwyn

--
Bronwyn Holloway-Smith
Director and Co-Founder
Creative Freedom Foundation
http://creativefreedom.org.nz