People Power in Finland Pushing for Copyright Reform

Finland Considers "Crowdsourced" Copyright Law - The Escapist

It is amazing the things you learn.  It turns out that over in Finland if you can get 50,000 people to support suggested changes to legislation within a six month period then it will get considered by parliament, and this is exactly what has happened with "The Common Sense in Copyright Act" proposal that made it to the elusive target with one day to spare!

The Finnish legislative "crowd sourcing" organisation Open Ministry is seeking reforms to reduce penalties, increase fair use, remove "unfair" clauses in recording contracts and most importantly allow people to make personal use copies of media they already own.

This will be the first time that any push for copyright law changes has not come from lobby groups representing media companies so maybe, just maybe, this will be the first steps towards laws that actually take the consumers into consideration.

The proposals are not due to go before the Finnish parliament until early 2014.  Here's hoping there aren't too many attempts to derail it before it gets there.