I only spotted this on Twitter last night (thanks to @stephenfry, of course), but it seems to be gathering some momentum now with lots of news sites including nme.com picking it up (obvious exception being the NZ Herald at the moment).
There's a great Geekzone Blog Entry here which describes the issue: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha/6247
I think this law is completely crazy, and even though I'm not interested in pirating music (iTunes Plus with No DRM is good enough for me, and I still buy CDs every few weeks) I think the possibility of losing my access to the Internet because of a simple accusation is not only likely but would also be pretty damaging. Most of my client work has been done from home over the past few months, and were Orcon to pull the plug on my service, at the whim of a large media conglomerate, not only would I not be able to work it would affect the other consultants I work with too. And I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position. With the economy the way it is at the moment, you'd think the government would be doing all it can to support small businesses, especially those of use environmentally savvy enough to work from home.
I don't know whether or not any of this will have any effect, but hopefully if the story gains enough traction on the mainstream news sites, someone in government (other than United Future MP Peter Dunne) will step up to change (if not repeal) this ridiculous law. Hopefully before February 28th, but definitely before it does any damage and ends up knocking me or many others like me, off the net.
A horrific thought! :-|
Posts
