14 DAY TRIAL // Finland is the first country to vote on a “crowdsourced” copyright law after a recent modification of the national Constitution allows citizens to make legislative proposals.
According to the modification, the Parliament can vote on proposals if these get 50,000 supporters in six months, TorrentFreak reports.
One of the submitted proposals, which asks for a fairer copyright law, just reached the goal one day before the deadline, which makes Finland the first country in which legislators will vote on a copyright law drafted by its citizens.
Dubbed “The Common Sense in Copyright Act,” the proposal looks to reduce penalties for copyright infringement, to increase fair use, unfair clauses in recording contracts and to ease the ability for people to make copies of items they already own for backup.
If passed into law, it would also mean the stop of house searches and online surveillance of suspected copyright infringers, which are common events in Finland.
The proposal is being pushed forward by street artist Sampsa who has been working with the Finnish Electronic Frontier Foundation. So far, the idea keeps getting political support from Finland, but also from outer European countries and beyond.
The goal of getting 50,000 votes has been reached so the proposal will be put to vote in the Finnish Parliament early next year.
The people behind the proposal have been working with European Digital Rights members on a global scale to make sure the pressure is still on and things haven’t fizzled out by the time the law goes under vote.
Open Ministry is the organization that coordinates the public proposals. Its officials claim that today’s success breaks the tradition where lobbyists draft copyright law.
“Members of Parliament are quite open about the fact that Copyright Laws are handed down to them from the international lobbyists. If we do not push back, they will keep on rubber-stamping harsh legislation and infringing on consumer rights,” says Joonas Pekkanen, chairman of Open Ministry.