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Will the blackout backfire?

18 February 2009

I've written before about the ridiculous provisions contained in Section 92A of NZ's Copyright Amendment Act but today it's time to take a look at what objectors are doing about it.

Many commentators, like myself, have already written a plethora of columns and blogs decrying the new legislation due to come into effect at the end of the month but so far, the politicians remain resolute in their support for this law.

In an effort to turn up the heat and raise public awareness, one group of protestors has embarked on a campaign called Internet Blackout N.Z.

The goal of this movement is to publicly demonstrate the level of concern within the internet community for this draconian legislation.

Unfortunately, I fear that it may well backfire, as so many similar schemes have done before.

In principle it sounds great.

Simply throw up a few banners on your website, Myspace, Twitter or Facebook page which advertise the campaign.

You can also sign up to a cyber-petition and even attend a public demonstration to be held this Thursday at lunchtime in Wellington.

The hope is that so many people will join in this movement that our politicians will pretty soon get the message that this law is despised (or at least disliked) by the vast majority of connected-Kiwis.

But what if the numbers are small?

There's no doubt that our legislative decision-makers will be aware of the blackout's existence but, if they don't see a sea of black when they surf the web, the whole thing could backfire in the organiser's faces.

I've seen this kind of movement fail dismally many times before...

Someone decides to launch a cyber-petition and goes out with all guns blazing.

Despite much sabre-rattling and shouting, the results are dismal.

Unless you can be sure of getting a quarter of a million *valid* e-signatures to your cyber-petition then forget it. Nobody (least of all the politicians) are going to be impressed by a four or five-digit total. That's such a small percentage of the Kiwi cyber-population that it simply shows that *nobody* cares.

I think the organisers of this campaign (and most like it) simply forget about the great Kiwi attitude of "someone else can do it" and "she'll be right".

The vast majority of Kiwis who are opposed to Section 92A won't sign the petition, the won't update their web-presence and they won't attend a lunchtime rally -- they'll leave that for someone else to do.

So, when the politicians see the dismal level of actual support for this campaign, the paltry number of signatures on the petition and the few hundred souls that march through the streets of Wellington, they'll compare those figures to the millions that voted them into power. The result will be (in the small minds of those politicians) a no-contest.

They honestly think that all those votes they got just four months ago were a mandate to leave Section 92A just as it is and that, in a democratic society, no tiny group of cyber-upstarts have any right to change the status-quo.

As I've said before, the only way to ram home the effect this legislation will have and to force the politicians' hands is to do something that really does force "Joe average internet user" to get off their thumbs and complain.

What would that be?

Well let the ISPs who are bitching and moaning so long and hard about the huge burden that's about to be imposed on them by Sect 92A cut off all access to those sites which are likely to hold or reference unlawful copies of copyrighted material.

Block YouTube, Google and all P2P traffic for a week.

Then, and only then, will you get *real* crowds of angry people marching on Parliament and only when their own Video blogs are no longer accessible to the public will our politicians sit up and take notice.

If the ISPs aren't prepared to stand up and take action, why should we?

As for the Blackout movement?

Well I whole-heartedly support the goal but there's an old saying. It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

Unless this really works and gets universal support, it's only going to weaken the case against Section 92A because everyone that doesn't sign-up will be assumed (by our dim-bulb politicians) to be in support of the new law.

Aardvark will be joining the blackout as soon as i can craft up a suitably-sized banner (none of the ready-made ones are suitable) for my layout.

Finally, since this subject as been "done to death", I'll be creating a separate feature that will (I hope) accurately summarise events to date and future activity in respect to this law -- without cluttering up the regular daily column.

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