So-Called Censorship
I'm not sure how many people understand what SOPA/PIPA actually mean, so here's the skinny of it. SOPA/PIPA is not censorship the way we all know and loathe it. This is an all-new, nuclear-weapons grade kind of problem... at least for us first-world countries.
It goes like this:
1) See this website?
2) Now you don't.
A lot of people think SOPA/PIPA will make surfing the internet worse. Those people don't understand the full scope of the problem. SOPA/PIPA will not make sites like Youtube, Facebook, Inkbunny, FA, DA, Etsy, and other such sites block infringing content. There is no "please remove this content" phase after SOPA/PIPA passes. Dealing with copyright infringement after SOPA/PIPA works like this:
1) Company discovers infringing material on a website.
2) Company files legal claim against website.
3) Government acts on legal claim and
3a) Issues legal order to search engines to remove site from results, and
3b) Issues legal order to domain registrar to permanently shut down website.
This means that, regardless of where the website is hosted, it will be inaccessible in America except to the very tech-savvy. It doesn't matter that the site itself is outside America's jurisdiction; SOPA/PIPA targets only accessibility, not hosting.
And it also means that one wrong video will make Youtube a goner. One bad post will shut down Facebook forever. One bit of fanart and Inkbunny is toast.
Supposedly there was going to be an internet strike today. Kudos to Reddit, Mojang, and Wikipedia for going completely black; this is what needed to happen. Youtube needed to disappear completely today. So did Facebook. So did everything else. I am disgusted by these pansy little notices ("We are protesting SOPA, but not in any way that might negatively impact my business!").
Inkbunny: If SOPA/PIPA passes, your site will disappear. You will not have the option to censor your material. You will likely not even be contacted. All of a sudden you will type in inkbunny.net and you will get a network/TCP error (server not found). Because it won't be there anymore. SOPA doesn't just adversely affect internet activity; it shuts it right the fuck down.
But nobody really knows how bad it is, because the big names, the ones that will go bye-bye, have these little tiny-ass notices. Which tells everyone "This is a little tiny problem." But it isn't. Read up on what major media moguls like Sony, Disney, and the MPAA have to say about the internet: you'll find they really do not give a single shit if the entire internet just disappears overnight. They don't rely on it for money. To them, the internet is an enemy, pure and simple. They don't want to use it; they want it to go away. SOPA/PIPA will make that happen.
And if you don't think SOPA/PIPA will pass, you apparently missed the NDAA passing a few weeks ago that allowed the military to flip the Constitution the bird and hold American citizens indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay (you know, the torture prison). The 112th Congress is on a big roll of "Fuck You, America", so I'd suggest getting your rear in fucking gear and doing something about it.
Pledge to support and vote only for officials who oppose internet censorship. And sign up for their newsletter, and sign every fucking petition against online censorship they send to you.
That is all.
(Written by Arcane and reposted in the name of all of us who want to be a professional artist someday. If SOPA/PIPA passes, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. Repost it, spread the word, and put your foot down.)
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12 years, 3 months ago
19 Jan 2012 15:41 CET
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