Phew - what a day! A huge THANKS to all of you who turned up at Parliament today for the public demonstration in support of MPs against the Guilt Upon Accusation law Section 92A. Today has been a great success: the petition has been tabled in parliament by Peter Dunne of United Future, and the media have covered the issue extensively. Clare Curran of Labour has a bill proposing to delay S92A and CFF had a productive meeting with her to discuss the issues, particularly around copyright education and the alternatives to S92A. But National's Simon Power -- the minister responsible for S92A -- is still taking a wait and see approach to S92A rather than coming to grips with it. We urge Mr Power to rise to the challenge of protecting New Zealanders' fundamental rights by repealing or further delaying S92A before Feb 28th.

This morning we sent this letter to Mr Power describing the many flaws of this law that affect artists, businesses, and all New Zealanders:

With UnitedFuture, Labour, and Greens seeing the problems with this law and calling for National to take action, the time is NOW for National to take action. ACT have sent emails saying they're against it to our members but they have made no public statement.

Videos here protest videos and here
Images here official photos and Scoop Photos

One News reporter Heather Duplessis-Allen interviewed CFF Director Bronwyn Holloway-Smith about this

In other news, the people at Powershop are supporting the Internet Blackout campaign with a generous offer. Details below,

(yes, a power company supporting a blackout)

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GIVE POWER TO THE PEOPLE WHEN YOU BUY POWER FROM US

Want to use your purchasing power to make a difference? Powershop we're joining a growing chorus of voices opposed to new and alarming curbs on internet freedom. Amendments to sections 92A & C of the Copyright Act could require ISPs to disconnect the internet access of customers accused of copyright infringement. Disturbingly, there is no trial or evidence held up to court scrutiny; an accusation is enough.

As a company that relies on a robust online marketplace, we're throwing our weight behind the Internet Blackout campaign of the Creative Freedom Foundation (CreativeFreedom.org.nz) in their attempts to have these amendments repealed.

So right now, if you join here at Powershop we'll contribute $20 to the Creative Freedom Foundation. You'll be helping fight this unfair, draconian piece of legislation. Thank you for supporting us.

this law is a prime example for why we shouldn't have politicians, or at least politicians that don't have a clue on what the public want. and with a law like this maybe they should have talked to the public first. my alternative is provide a service for people who download the alternative which is TV shows world wide, an affordable service, or free up the television monopoly and give us the selection or the option of what Australia has to offer, or America, and United Kingdom. i had to wait 2 years for Eureka to come to dvd in new zealand, yet and the same amount of time for TV, this is well Unacceptable, we need to keep up with the play, and to say there is no demand for this is rubbish, and why should we have to wait when the whole world is ahead of us. and to be honest i download only TV shows, to see what they are like, first episode that is it, then i wait patently till it is launched to dvd. this is why before they do something raticle like this, they need to make sure there is a legal way to acquire, these sort of things.

by the way we are waiting for TVNZ to Finnish running season 2 of eureka (which is a prime time show around the world) playing on a Saturday at 3pm (so i work through it,) before we are able to get season 2 on dvd, and season 3 has already finished in AU,UK,US,RI. why do we have to wait so long? make it fair or don't make it at all. put the hard word on the media company's before you do to the public, because all we want is support, not to be alienated by the very things we like to support.

ps. i import all my music because i cannot get it here. and i do end up paying for than $60 for a single CD, so i dont have any need for music infringement and if i did, there is always Itunes.

I know this is quite late to be weighing in for this, buuuuutttt...

Here's a brief attempt at photojournalism around the protest
http://www.nzgames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1708126&postcount=437

(And yes, I know I put the wrong date... )

... And I've no idea why I put 28th March instead of 28th Feb