Internet NZ have signed on as a key sponsor of the upcoming Linux & opensource conference (the conference usually known as linux.conf.au)

This is slightly old news, but worth repeating
http://blog.internetnz.net.nz/?p=265

The annual Linux.conf.au conference will be held in January 2010 in Wellington - the second time it has been held in New Zealand. It will bring together local and international open source practitioners who contribute to the Linux operating system and numerous other open source projects. Linux creator Linus Torvalds regularly attends this event.

InternetNZ Executive Director Keith Davidson says open source has played, and continues to play, a key role in achieving InternetNZ’s vision of an open and uncaptureable Internet.

“Every New Zealander that uses the Internet is an open source user. It’s the backbone of almost everything business and government does these days. If you want to get close to the people that have built the core technology of the 21st century, you go to conferences like LCA2010. I’m thrilled it is being held right on our doorstep.”

“It is particularly timely that LCA2010 is being held in Wellington. Government agencies have been caught up in something of a technical monoculture, leading to missed opportunity and detachment from key transformations that the Internet has enabled. Any IT staff in the public sector unfamiliar with open source would get a huge boost talking with technical folk that have enjoyed the freedom of unfettered global collaboration.”

Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 2:56 pm
Press Release: LinuxChix NZ

New Zealand Linux Industry and Community reject guilt on accusation copyright laws Press release by LinuxChix NZ, Waikato Linux Users' Group and Wellington Linux Users' Group 11-March-2009

A new threat has emerged against Linux and other Open Source Software: New Zealand's new, ill-conceived copyright laws that pave the way for users to be disconnected on accusation of copyright infringement.

Copyright threats against Linux are nothing new. In 2003 The SCO Group, a commercial entity from the USA, falsely claimed copyright on parts of the Linux operating system. It took a long time, over four years for these claims to be declared as false by the courts and thrown out. Even though SCO Group's copyright claims were found baseless, the drawn-out legal process was prohibitively expensive and held the potential to severely damage the future of Linux.

Many New Zealand businesses and community groups fear the threat of false copyright accusations against Linux could result in internet disconnection and website takedowns without due process. There is no requirement under the new law to prove the accusations, nor are there any sanctions against those who make false ones.

Already, the country's third largest ISP, TelstraClear, has stated it will take down sites accused of hosting copyright infringing material without investigation or verification of the claims.

i'm going to put the final fullstop on my submission this weekend.

here's the portions i'm working on.

Education

The ongoing theme/goal of this debacle is "education" of Copyright Infringers. Many professional educators will tell you that you can't teach by saying "Don't do that" and expect someone to just stop.

For example, you can try telling a child to "Stop running" but you'll have much greater success if you tell the the child to "Walk, don't run." Instead of saying: "Stop eating with your hands", you ought to say "Use your knife and fork".

The same holds for "eduction notices". Don't say "Stop downloading Regina Spektor", but instead say "Go buy Regina Spektor's music on CDbaby.com, emusic.com, audiogalaxy.com, or Apple iTunes".

Once you have positive actions included, then the notice actually becomes a "education notice".

False accusations

It has been suggested that those that make false accusations of copyright infringement (repeatedly) should get their internet cut off -- i propose a compromise -- if a issuer of infringement accusations is shown to be making false accusations repeatedly they must lose their right to make further accusations.

This is inline with the intent of the copyright act, because it would be completely unreasonable to cut off someone based on the accusations of someone who has been proven to not be careful in their accusations.

Copyright Adjudicator