Hello Ted,

I am cross-posting your email for the advocacy advisory group.

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Ted Chien <hsiangtai.chien@gmail.com> wrote:

My dear colleagues,

Recently on May 21 the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office has announced
that they will amend the Copyright Act to demand local ISPs to block
illegal contents on foreign websites, just like the SOPA bill in USA last
year. For more information, you can read the following news reports:

Focus Taiwan:
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201305210035.aspx

ZDNet:
http://www.zdnet.com/cn/taiwans-copyright-act-amendment-proposal-comes-under-fire-7000015943/

Now there are many Taiwan netizens protesting the bill:

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/05/26/netizens-fear-copyright-amendment-will-bring-web-filter-system-to-taiwan/

But today we just see an news that TIPO just ignored these protests and
insist that this bill will not harm the net freedom and rights of general
users:

http://newtalk.tw/news/2013/05/28/36854.html (it's in Chinese, you may use
Google translate to read the news.)

Indeed we should protect the copyright, but to ask ISPs to block websites
is too over-reaction.

We Wikimedia Taiwan is now against the bill and has just released an
Chinese announcement on our official website to explain why we against the
bill and ask the government to stop the act:

http://bit.ly/ZbvTX0

We also started an discussion on zh.wp to ask the community if we could put
the announcement as an global site notice, we even think about blackout
zh.wp for 24 hours (the date is still in discussion):

http://goo.gl/fXi8g

This is because according to Alexa.com (http://Alexa.com), Wikipedia is now
the top 10 website in Taiwan. To blackout Wikipedia in Taiwan should get
the attention of TIPO and has some effects.

My questions are:

* Could we ask for blackout Wikipedia (not just zh.wp) ONLY for Taiwan IP?
(Some users from China hope this blackout will not effect them)
* If we could not blackout Wikipedia only for Taiwan IP, could we ask to
blackout zh.wp? (from what we have discussed on zh.wp, the Chinese
community has agreed on such blackout, but the date is still on discussion)
* If we could implement such blackout, how soon it can be done?
* What suggestions from you that we should do as an local Chapter?

Thanks and Regards,
Ted Chien
Chairman
Wikimedia Taiwan
--
Blog: htttp://htchien.tw (http://htchien.tw/)
Facebook: http://facebook.com/htchien
Twitter: http://twitter.com/htchien
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/htchien
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Stephen LaPorte

Legal Counsel

Wikimedia Foundation

For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.