Monday, August 26, 2013

SOPA Idiocy Continues



Well, guys,  today we have an excellent topic to  chew through.   When I  woke up  I didn't think I would  have an email in my inbox  by one of my fellow  writers  warning me about SOPA.   For  those who don't know what SOPA is, it's Stop Online Piracy Act, for more information, look it up on Wikipedia.  God forbid I  should be accused of  stealing intellectual property. /snarks/ And  while we are at Wikipedia,  surely  you guys remember the blackout  day (or night) on January 18th to 19th last year (2012). The Wikipedia staff  blackouted  site in protest of  the  irrational  piece  of legislature  that is SOPA.

The thing is, SOPA is a bane for the  writers  and  artists, even scientists  and researchers  everywhere. Why, you ask?   Because it has severe case of mine-itis,  meaning   it  directly tell you you shouldn't   play with  your  neighbor's toy, even is he or she allowed it. In terms of fanfiction, it means  you could be kicked into  jail just for  writing an oneshot  from... well, say  Bleach, Naruto  or  Harry Potter, hell, let's  add  One Piece  and Fairy Tail to the  bunch, and  don't even mention the multitude of movies and songs  and  whatnot.  Youtube  primarily  houses   the  vids made from  animes and if you recall, it also has vids with lyrics for  the  songs -  I find them  very useful, as I am deaf, and  it's really hard to listen to the   song   without  having  a text along.   Random  song  sites are  good  too, because I can find  lyrics and then save them for a later perusal if I am in hurry.  Hell, even my  thesis and research work  stem   -  because of the  topic  difficulty  and  because I couldn't  find the  research material in  paperback editions – primarily  from internet sources. 

If the SOPA comes in effect, it would shut down the  information  venues mighty quick, just because the  unfortunate schmuck  had to  use the outside sources.  For example, you are writing a research paper on... shall we say, World War 2, and  you found a very interesting site  with  plethora of  useful  data. You are all excited, you get to writing and  really,  your  paper is just a thing of  beauty -  and then, bam, the  cops are at your  door with – 'Dear Sir/Madam  you are guilty of  illegal use of content of this and that site, so would you kindly  go with us to the  jail?   Don't worry, it's only for five or six years. ' What a kind  reception of your work. You should  be jumping  to the ceiling with happiness.... Not. 

You know what that means? The cops would have to arrest  everyone -  from the  primary, to  middle and high schoolers to the students and researchers at the universities because they are using sources without the owner's  agreement -  never mind that we students and researchers have to submit the electronic  copies of our  written work -  thesis and  so  on  for the public perusal, along with slaving over the exact citing of the sources. We rely on our colleagues' research to  get our own  work wiggling and there are not few examples it basically saved our asses when we didn't  know  something. If  we extrapolate  it  further, we  would be  forbidden to   teach the kids  how to  read and write  because oh, no, SOPA forbid it!  An extreme example and  probably won't ever come to fruition, but it's a terrifying possibility. What is the use of  education and knowledge if  we can't (responsibly)  use it for  the betterment of our world?  Go chuck us back in the stone ages, why don't you, pal. 

The worst thing is,  the act like this would have  global ramifications -  just because  we would have to use  a work from an American author, we could be  possibly fined and thrown in jail, no matter our  very pure an innocent  intentions to begin with.   You could  be in  Hong Kong, Sri Lanka,  Netherland, New Zealand, Germany -  any country, and   with  using  the  American author  in your  masterpiece you would  unknowingly   became a felon.  Because  SOPA is  just so misty-worded like this and  it can be -  with a help of  a hell of a  good lawyer -  act like a hammer on our heads.   And consider the  next thing - in entertainemnt,  there  we have Japan, who  also uses ... free  creative license, in the shape of doujinshis -  douijinshi is a manga  drawn by other  artists using the  original characters from another anime.  Not a very good definition,   but let's go with this one, because it would help  with illustrating our point.  So, we have dudes and dudettes who  have  a bright idea that story could be done  differently and  do their thing.  Does anyone complain? No.(Well, except the hard-core admirers of some animes but that's another point altogether)  They  live ever-happily together, and if the  said doujinshi is good, all the better.  DeviantArt is another site that  houses not only original works, but many   pictures  of scenes or  characters from  the movies, video spots or games and mangas. Without them, the place would be very, very bleak.  Additionally, the sites that house anime and manga content would be wiped out. All the hard work of  translators, typesetters, quality checkers and editors would be for naught. Imagine  yourself buying a  book, translating it for  your fellow  fans or colleagues  and then happily uploading it on the 'net, only to  find out  that not only it was taken down, because it was illegal work to begin with – even if you credited the  author and  all -  you even face the nice jail time for your  generous act.  By that logic they should have to arrest the entirety of  Google staff for inventing Google  Translator.  Which is equally absurd.

SOPA is an idiotic, irrational piece of legislature that was written primarily for the benefit of the entertainment  industry, without taking in the account both global and  subcultural ramifications of  actually passing the act. Entertainment industry  depends on the masses of people, and this act is a  sure fire way of slitting its throat. The industry is dependent on people, their likes and dislikes  of their products  - and believe it or not,   some of the main sources are  actually fan-generated, from fans to  prospective fans that interest them in particular movie,  book and whatnot,  and not even once the fans claim it's exclusively their work to begin with -  they always mention  the  source -  Iron Man movie, Chronicles of Narnia  book,  the Star Wars soundtrack, the list goes on -  they only  want to be credited for their own work, be that vids,  remakes or  stories.  They are practically the sixth  force of this industry,  and  SOPA  seeks to cull it down,  punishing them when they  should  actually be rewarded -  some of the works outside are  works of art, and the  artists who  created them more often than not,  don't see a dime  from  it's creating -  they pour in their sweat,  blood and tears,  even exceeding the  original work,  and  for what?  To be spit on by SOPA, just because they had an itch in their fingers to create something?   This is  just like  punishing a kid  who finished  his  daddy's  jigsaw  for  touching it.  Instead of  looking at the kids' accomplishment, you are angry  the kid didn't leave the jigsaw the hell alone, all  thousand pieces of it, even if it wasn't touched for days.  So, time out corner in jail,  then. 

There is protection of the  copyrights and there is  abusing the  said protection of the copyrights. SOPA is firmly leaning  toward  the latter one,  and I don't condone  that.  Not as a fan, not  as a scholar, not as a researcher.  I was born with the ability to  think and  write,  and  SOPA  doesn't have the right to take them away.  You do that, you will have to strip  millions of students and doctors worldwide of their degrees  because they violated the copyrights  when they cited the findings of their  fellow colleagues in their works or arrest the musicians for using that particular  (and well known) song arrangement  and throw the movie directors in jail just because they  made a parody of a well known movie.  

With that said, I need you, people -  readers, writers,  musicians,  artists,   students, scientists -  everyone, to help  to overthrow the  SOPA  legislation.  I need your voices -  I want them to speak up and  say  stop to the  mindless  encroaching on  our creativity, our freedom of  expression . I want you to  stand up  and  say it is enough.   We  are not mindless  slaves of the entertainment industry -  if anything,  we are the  contributors, patrons, co-artists, and  its  greatest  supporters. 

Stand up! Speak up!  Lend  us your voice!  Let  yourself be heard!  Let's stop SOPA together!

Join me  with gathering signatures at  the petition  site.  It doesn't matter if you are an American or not -  every signature  counts and the more  we have,  the  greater the chance SOPA will be ended  for good.
Thank you and have a nice day, 

Eirenei

PS:  The petition is available at this site https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-sopa-2013/LMzMVrQF  

 The  reading material for  the curious about SOPA - 

Unathorized  Streaming a Felony


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Back To Life

Yipes, time flies when you have fun and work meshed together.   August is  nearing it's end, and   really,   I  almost didn't notice,  except  for sun up  sun down and   carrying milk home /sweatdrops/.

Finished another chapter of Fire And Ice,  another -  Crimson Sagittarius -  in works, and biting my thesis to death -  yay,  it will be finished soon,  but I pity the poor  sod  who will have to get through it in search of information -  oh  wait, that poor sod is me /double sweatdrop/.  I am surprised  the  chapter was so well-received,  but happy, and it makes my  fingers itch to write some more.

Oh, and  besides having new plotbunnies for Uta no Prince-Sama,  I got  into  Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on the Titans) and I gotta say,  this new obsession will probably spawn  some more projects to write out /cringes/.  Hells  bells,  this  will be a wild ride, but when it isn't? /snarks/.  And while we are at that, I discovered  a beautiful  vid on Youtube -  it's superb, because  it  has  very good pictures  and the song just  lodged itself in my  brain.  I was  up half  a night  to listen to this, and   even if I was half-dead at morning, when  I  had to  go to work,  it was fucking worth it /mad grin/.  It also helped  my interest in Levi Rivaille and his dog - ahem,  protege, Eren Jaeger a little too much. /chagrined smile/ .  And I will definitely look up 3OH!3 more, because their song, "Back To Life"  was one of the best I've heard yet. 

Yup, rambling.   And  now signing off... milk waits for no man.

 See ya soon,

Eirenei