Wikipedia blackout mirrors SA's secrecy law

On Wednesday, or Tuesday, depending on what time zone one is in, Wikipedia placed a grey and white notice on its English language service saying: "For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopaedia in human history.

"Right now, the US Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia."

The protest was aimed at two draft laws one labelled the SOPA Stop Online Piracy Act) and the other PIPA (Protect IP Act).

Media corporations the main drivers

US media corporations, especially those involved in film and entertainment, have been the main drivers behind these bills as they believe that the ease of distribution over the internet has become a fundamental threat to their business models.

President Barack Obama initially supported the bills but has since changed his mind and issued statements detailing objections to them.

In SA the POIB is aimed at protecting state information and is sponsored by the Ministry of State Security, the department charged with controlling and running the country's intelligence services and with protecting valuable information.

This bill was passed by Parliament's lower house, the National Assembly on November 22, commonly now dubbed "Black Tuesday" by the SA media and civic society organisations that have strongly opposed it. The National Council of Provinces is currently examining it.

One main objection to the US laws was that the legal authorities there could compel internet service providers and search engines, such as Google, to scrub links to web sites whether they are located in that country or not if they believe they are illegally carrying licensed content.

'Draconian'

"Those laws are draconian in their application," said Max Kaizen, public lead of Creative Commons in SA. "They have no fair process.

"Up and till now a take down notice would be issued and then there would be an investigation to determine if the content was licensed or not and then a permanent decision was made. Now it is the other way round."

Murray Hunter, national coordinator of the Right2Know Campaign said the POIB imposes sentences ranging from five to 25 years should a person be found in possession of classified government information and has not informed the police.

"There is a strong similarity of what large multi-national corporations and governments are trying to achieve with stopping the free flow of information," he said.

Kaizen said: "It's all about control by whatever means so that anyone who opposes any kind of ruling party or dominant company is in trouble."

'The internet is a flourishing bed of creativity'

Social media expert Dave Duarte said the attempt to stop digital distribution of music and other creative content to protect business cases would just stifle innovation.

"In fact the opposite has been proven to be true. The more easily content and music is available the more money is to be made. The internet is a flourishing bed of creativity, with plenty of money still to be made. Those in fear of it are afraid of anything new," he said.

ICT lawyer Mike Silber said the debate ranging around the US and SA draft laws were essentially about different groups struggling with how to handle the ease of flow of information that the internet provides.

"Creative people want to show their work as widely as possible and be rewarded for it. However, much creative work is a derivative of other works. States need to protect their information, but information is very important for the functioning of democracy," he said.

"Traditional approaches to information dissemination will need to change over time. It is now about inspiring, sharing and influencing," he said.

Right2Know's Hunter said the danger of the US draft laws was that they set precedence for the rest of the world.

"During the POIB debates we heard many mentions of what was being done in other countries, or international best practice. However, this is simply a lazy way to draft legislation.

None of these laws (the US laws or the POIB) are wanted. Rather we should start looking at making our own laws that do not necessarily follow anyone else's line," Hunter said.