A little over a year ago we wrote about Finland's new Citizen's Initiative act, which requires parliament to process any bills proposed by the public if they get 50,000 signatures of support, and the Open Ministry website built to make the process easier. Then, earlier this year, we noted that one of the bills gaining steam on the platform was a call for new crowdsourced copyright laws.

Now, TorrentFreak is reporting that a bunch of Finnish websites went dark yesterday as part of a blackout intended to promote the citizen's initiative, which currently has a little over 27,000 signatures. The copyright proposal itself contains lots of sensible ideas:

The proposal addresses this concern by making small scale piracy a fine, at maximum, rather than its current maximum of two years in jail. By moving down the maximum penalty, the Finnish police would be more limited in their investigation methods - they won't be able to spy on citizens online, or confiscate property.

The remaining main points in the proposal include allowing fair use of copyrighted material for teaching and research, and adds fair use rights for parody and satire, which is unclear in the current legislation.

Artists' rights would also be strengthened, allowing artists to license their works through open licenses. Additionally, if a fan of an artist is being proscecuted, then the artist will have the ability to tell their representative organization to stop suing on behalf of their content.

Many decisions involving copyright in Finland are discussed and decided within a Copright Council, which includes representatives from the old media industries, such as the TV and recording industries. The proposal would also add internet operators, software, and gaming industries into that mix, as the scope of copyright expanding all the time.

Also, the proposal would clear up the language when it comes to personal video recording systems, which will assist startups, like BooxTV, working in this field, and perhaps allow for new innovations in this area.

It's fantastic to see the SOPA-style blackout tactic being employed proactively, to push for positive reform, rather than just as a defensive play against copyright maximalists. While a localized blackout is never going to have the impact of something as widespread as the SOPA protests given the global nature of the internet, here's hoping it gains enough traction to put these much-needed ideas about copyright in front of the Finnish parliament.

Yesterday was the day that, each year, proves that people do not in fact hate advertising. They actually like it quite a bit if the advertising is good. What they hate is crappy and annoying advertising. Of course, every Super Bowl, various brands duke it out to see who can get the most bang for their buck in Super Bowl advertisements -- which this year went for a cool $3.5 million for a basic spot. Still, many people are pointing out that the real winner of the Super Bowl advertising fight wasn't from one of the TV commercials at all, but rather Oreo's advertising agency, who sprung into immediate action when the power went out at the Super Bowl. Within just a few minutes (I think slightly less than 15), Oreo had put out the following tweet:

Power out? No problem. twitter.com/Oreo/status/29…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Just in case you can't see the embed, it says "Power out? No problem." And then had the following image with the caption "You can still dunk in the dark." A few other brands got out some clever tweets, such as Walgreens tweeting that it carries candles or Audi tweeting that it was sending some LEDs over to the Super Bowl. Twitter claims that four minutes after the lights went out an advertiser had already bid on "power outage" as a search term (you'd think "black out" might have been more effective). But Oreo actually got that graphic together, with the caption, and got it all up online quite quickly. I'm in awe, given that with big brands you normally expect there to be a bit too much red tape and "approvals" for anything like that. For Oreo, the key to having this work was that its ad agency folks and all of the key people from Oreo were in a room together, so the approvals went fast.

Tide also got a "blackout" graphic and joke online, three minutes after Oreo. It put up a weak image with a caption: "We can't get your blackout, But we can get your stains out." Kudos for trying, but definitely a step behind Oreo.

It's worth noting, by the way, that Oreo did, in fact, pay for a Super Bowl commercial as well, though it was showing up on lists of the worst Super Bowl commercials of the year. Whoever came up with the image and the tweet in record time may have saved the Super Bowl for Oreo.

Of course, all of this does raise a larger point about marketing and advertising these days. Doing a good job often has less to do with how much money you spend than with how good you are at actually connecting with people -- and a well-timed tweet and graphic can do wonders.

Last week, we wrote about Viacom's really short-sighted decision to use its fans as hostages in a silly dispute with DirecTV over fees. To prevent any DirecTV customer from seeing any of its key shows, Viacom stopped streaming them online... for all customers, meaning that even those who had nothing to do with any of this couldn't legally watch the shows they liked. As we noted, this would likely only serve to drive more people to find unauthorized versions. Late in the week, we saw AMC smartly take the opposite approach and provide more online access to customers disrupted by a similar fight it was having with Dish Network.

Of course, one of Viacom's most popular shows -- and one of the key ones turned off from streaming -- is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which had been on break last week anyway. However, it returned last night with a vengeance, and target number one: his corporate masters at Viacom for acting as if they were China in blocking the internet, and likely driving more fans to unauthorized streams. You can watch it here (if you're in the US) complete with Viacom appending a commercial bitching about DirecTV beforehand: When we wrote about this last week, one of our usual critics told us, in some of the most angry language imaginable, how objectionable it was that we dared to mention the obvious fact that if you don't make things available legally, people might find unauthorized versions. However, Stewart made the exact same point in his discussion of the situation.

"You're pulling the shows from the internet?!? What are you, China?!? And by the way, you don't think the kids already have a workaround? This morning, when I woke up, my 8-year-old son was watching Dark Knight Rises in 3D. They're already figuring it out. So basically you're blocking old people from watching the show, and just giving people a chance to discover that there's other entertaining s**t in the world...."

In response, Viacom has somewhat sheepishly backed down and put the Daily Show & Colbert back online (though it seems some others may be blocked). It tried to make a joke of this a bit by pointing to Stewart's mocking and noting that "The Daily Show continues to exercise the creative and editorial freedom that makes it consistently great." In other words, someone at Viacom realized they totally screwed up and even their own high profile employees were calling them on it publicly. It really makes you wonder if they have anyone at Viacom who thinks how the world will react to its crazy moves.

Over in Russia, they're preparing some new internet legislation that would censor the internet using the typical bogeymen. The claim from supporters is that the law is to block access to information on drugs, suicide and child porn -- all to protect the children. The way it works is with a giant blacklist, that I'm sure won't be abused at all (yes, that's sarcasm). We're talking about a country that has abused copyright law to go after critics and which has a bit of a... er... reputation for government officials abusing power to get what they want. In fact, some are already pointing out that the wording in the bill is really vague, such that it can be used to block any site dubbed as an "extremist" site.

And it's not just the human-reviewed blacklist that's at issue. The bill will also require "a special automatic system that will block websites containing 'prohibited' information.'" Because I'm sure that'll work even better...

We've noted other Russian legislation in the past, but this bill seems to go a hell of a lot further in creating a massive censorship tool for the Russian government.

The Russian Wikipedia is blacking out its site in protest, reminding many of the SOPA blackouts of Wikipedia in the US, though it's also worth noting that the Italian Wikipedia did a similar blackout even before the big SOPA blackout. It's good to see people speaking out and realizing that they don't have to just accept it when a government sweeps away their rights online. Who knows if this will have much of an impact, but getting more attention on the issue is a good start.

We've discussed in the past the importance of preserving our digital history, including the excellent work the famed Archive Team has done rescuing and archiving various sites as they're being shut down. Of course, sites that are shutting down are not all that's worth preserving. There are also timely events that have value as well. For example, the amazing and powerful SOPA blackouts and online protests from January 18th. That was an historic moment, but it was just one day. Plenty of sites, including ours, showed some of the more interesting sites from the blackout, but there were so may that participated. Could you save them all?

It appears that the Archive Team did exactly that, archiving every site they could find that took part in the protests. The team has now released the entire archive as a 13.6 GB zipped download (don't click that unless you want to start downloading the whole thing). If you'd just like to see a listing of what's included in the file, you can see that too (though, that's also a pretty long list, so beware).

Kudos, once again, to the Archive Team for preserving important digital moments in history and making them widely available.

Chris Dodd and the MPAA have been pretty harsh on folks who protested online last week, arguing that the protesters were "corporate pawns" and that the blackouts were an "abuse of power." It appears that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales feels otherwise. In a conference appearance he responded to the "abuse of power" claims by suggesting that the real abuse of power was Dodd threatening politicians who accept Hollywood money:

Wales argued that these transparent statements make the MPAA out to be a corrupt, Congress-buying organization. He also challenged Dodd’s assertion that Wikipedia’s decision to blackout its site in protest of SOPA, an effort Wales said was a “massive success,” constituted an abuse of power.

10 million people contacted Congress, Wales said. “That’s not an abuse of power, that’s democracy,” he said. “[Dodd] had best get used to it.”

Well, of course, to Dodd, actual democracy is an abuse of power. He prefers backroom dealing to actually letting the people out to have their say...

Needless to say, there's a pretty big protest going on right now against SOPA, with many sites either shuttering fully or making obvious changes in support of the protests. Leading the charge are Wikipedia, Reddit and Google. Sites like SOPA STRIKE and SOPA Blackout disseminated code to allow sites to easily join the blackout, but many sites have actually decided to take the time to tailor their protests for their own sites, which is amazing to see. It is this creative energy that drives the Internet and makes it what it is (for better or worse), and it is this very energy that legislation like SOPA and PIPA threaten to extinguish.

I've created a gallery of SOPA blackout screencaps, but here are some of my favorite takes on the protest today:

Reddit's blackout is probably the most complete; all URLs, including deep links, on Reddit lead to the blackout page, which is very impressive for such a largely trafficked site. For Redditor's going through Reddit-withdrawal today, they feature a handy countdown timer on their blackout page.


Wikipedia's blackout encompasses all of the English site, and as evidenced by @herpderpedia (who is collecting various angry Tweets about the Wikipedia blackout), it is certainly causing some frustration (and hopefully some awareness). That said, Wikipedia's blackout is very, very, very easy to thwart (just hit the ESC key before the page fully loads), so there's an easy escape valve for those that are in dire need of its content. In that same vein, Craigslist's full blackout also has a release valve that gracefully loads after a few seconds.

Google promised that it would do "something," and followed suit with a Google Doodle, essentially blacking out its logo in protest. Several sites followed suit, including Hacker News, 4chan's /b/ (link to a SFW screenshot), and TwitPic.

Taking the "censor-style" protest to the next level are Wired's blackout and Daily Kos' blackout. Wired's coders decided to mark up the page itself with black censor boxes, so that the page looks like it's been through the hands of some very aggressive government censors. Very clever from the design-minded folks over at Wired.


Elegant as always, xkcd's blackout offers the simple message, "[don't censor the web]".

And, the most amusing blackout of the day comes from McSweeney's (of course), who has handily replaced its site today with "A DAY’S WORTH OF FACTS TO GET YOU THROUGH WIKIPEDIA’S 24-HOUR BLACKOUT."


Check out the full gallery here, and let me know if there are any awesome blackout implementations that I've missed.

Well, well. It looks like the ongoing protests are inspiring some extra creativity from some musicians. A bunch of people have been sending around The Day The LOLcats Died, an obviously play on a song you all know: If you're a bit more into hip hop than rock and roll, there's this song, by Okwerdz, called: The American Government wants to CENSOR the Internet: If there are any others, feel free to leave some comments...

Venerated PC gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun has announced that it will be joining the anti-SOPA blackout tomorrow, taking its site down at 9:00 am GMT.

From 9am tomorrow morning, Rock, Paper, Shotgun will be blacked out in protest against SOPA and PIPA. The site will be gone, but for a single black page explaining why we're doing this. And then Thursday morning we'll be back.

Of particular note is the fact that RPS is a UK-based site, but one that recognizes that the threat SOPA and PIPA pose to the internet as we know it expands past national boundaries, much like the internet itself, a fact that seems lost on the legislators behind it.

At RPS we genuinely believe in the astonishing wonder of the internet. An unpredictable, utterly remarkable endeavour of humanity, it has radically changed the world in the 16 or so years that it’s been a part of the average person’s life, and the many years before that when it was going unnoticed. It has challenged everything, shaken entire industries, and created hundreds of thousands of new ones...

SOPA and PIPA seek to destroy all of this, rendering the internet a system controlled by the State and large corporations. The incredible freedom will be taken away, replaced with a system controlled by those with the most money. After a year when the internet has been the foundation of radical changes throughout the world, from those able to network themselves to overthrow their oppressive regimes, to those who have made a mockery of super-injunctions, the incredible means of supporting previously unknown projects through Kickstarter and the like, to the many wonderful pieces of art that have flourished, after that year, and after the year before it, and the one before that, how can anyone sit back and not fight for this precious, precious thing...

No, neither Congress nor the Senate will care that RPS is down, but the hundreds of thousands of people who visit RPS every day will. And they can pass that message on. This matters.

A tremendous statement from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, boiling down these bills to the underlying motive behind them: protecting favored industries. To see our representatives willing to throw in with their corporate benefactors despite worldwide protest is to see the hollow, hypocritical facade of a corrupted system disintegrate before your eyes.

RPS should also be commended for its outstanding coverage on SOPA/PIPA. A constantly updated page displaying for/against statements from ESA members (Entertainment Software Association) concerning SOPA has gathered some remarkable information, especially considering the ESA has chosen (much like the BSA did before distancing itself from the legislation) to put its support behind SOPA without consulting its members. Due to RPS's persistance, NVIDIA, Good Old Games, Red 5 (Firefall), Frozenbyte (Trine), Runic Games (Torchlight) and Notch (Minecraft) have all issued statements expressing their opposition to SOPA. Red 5 has gone one further by joining in the protest blackout:

Red 5 Studios is joining Reddit in protest of SOPA by going dark on January 18. We will be taking down our website, community site and Firefall beta for 24 hours on the 18th. We are extremely disappointed in this misguided legislation. We are also ashamed of the ESA for supporting a bill which is clearly not in the best interests of gamers or the game industry. This bill, and it’s sister bill, Protect IP, will shut down live streaming, shout casting, user generated content and have a chilling effect on game innovation and social media.

Most of all, it hurts the smaller game companies, who will not have the legal resources or lobbying presence to protect themselves from unwarranted shutdown. We issue a call to all our industry peers, including developers, publishers and game press, to join us in letting the ESA know they do not represent our views on this issue, and strongly oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Notch and his fellow Minecrafters are also mulling their options and planning on joining the blackout, with updates delivered via Notch's Twitter feed.

As RPS points out, the beneficiaries of this legislation and their representatives (who often seem to forget are supposed to be our representatives) won't care. But it should, at the very least, make it clear that opposition to this bill is not limited to a few hundred noisy pirates and a handful of apologists. If this legislation continues to be pushed through, it will be crystal clear who our "representatives" actually represent and no amount of spin will be able to turn that around.

Well, well. It appears that Lamar Smith really wants to tempt fate and stick his tongue out at the internet. Beyond announcing that he's moving forward with SOPA, he's also continuing to mock the critics, calling the Wikipedia blackout a "publicity stunt":

“It is ironic that a website dedicated to providing information is spreading misinformation about the Stop Online Piracy Act," Smith said in a statement on Tuesday. "The bill will not harm Wikipedia, domestic blogs or social networking sites. This publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts. Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy."

Smith, as per pretty much all of his statements on SOPA is either misinformed, disingenuous... or just lying. First of all, the anti-circumvention provisions certainly do apply to domestic sites, including Wikipedia. And as a site that provides information, it could certainly run afoul of those provisions. But, more to the point, Wikipedia isn't just speaking out because this bill impacts Wikipedia directly, but because of its wider concern over what this bill represents: a blacklist that seeks to block access to websites. You can be secure that it won't impact you and still take issue with the principle behind the bill.

It's a shame that Lamar Smith can't understand that, despite so many people online understanding it. I assume some of those people may give Rep. Smith a call tomorrow to express that point to him directly.

Meanwhile... shocker of shockers, the MPAA is out with a statement using a very similar phrase concerning the blackouts. Gee, kinda makes you wonder if Lamar Smith and the MPAA are consulting on talking points:

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”

This is hilarious only in that we're talking about the MPAA here, who is famous for abusing its powers and "intentionally skewing the facts to incite" people (mainly in Congress) "in order to further their corporate interests." Seriously, who honestly thinks that Wikipedia, Reddit and others are shutting down their sites to "further their corporate interests?" The MPAA -- as per usual, remains totally, and completely tone deaf to what's going on.

The MPAA wants SOPA to further its corporate interests. Wikipedia is a non-profit. Its interest is in stopping the MPAA from mucking up the internet, not in "furthering its corporate interests." Once again, it would be nice if the MPAA and Lamar Smith had the decency to be honest on this issue, but they're still working by the old playbook... the one where you lie and donate to campaigns until Congress gives you the laws you want, no matter how unnecessary or damaging they may be. They're seriously underestimating what's been activated online over the past few months. It's a massive miscalculation to brush off these legitimate concerns as a publicity stunt.