Policy Observatory
Finland’s Citizen Copyright Initiative Fails: A Sad But Necessary Win for Cross-Border Online Copyright Enforcement?
It was reported in a number of news outlets last week that the Finnish Parliament is close to rejecting the country's first crowdsourced copyright reform initiative. Titled Common Sense For Copyright (“Initiative”), the Initiative called for the expansion of copyright fair use exceptions under Finland’s Copyright Act (404/1961; "Copyright Act") including parody and satire, private copying, network storage, as well as others. The Initiative was reported to have arisen out of an incident in December 2012 when Finnish police raided the home of a nine-year-old girl who had illegally downloaded music on to her computer. Backed by Finnish crowdsourcing NGO Open Ministry (Avoin ministeriö), the Initiative received over 50,000 signatures within six months of its creation, qualifying it for legislative consideration by the Finnish Parliament under a 2012 reform to the Finnish Constitution.
Country: Finland
Domains: IPR
Stakeholder: Government