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
The reading material for the curious about SOPA -
Unathorized Streaming a Felony
