Sharing fannish enthusiasm!
Always Heidi. Usually with an 8. Often watching Supernatural, White Collar, Leverage, MCU/Avengers or revisiting Harry Potter. Fan of pink, crossovers and popcorn. Frequently traveling (including to Ascendio in Orlando, July 12-15).
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Since I can’t reblog my own post from November, I’m reposting it (with some updates) instead:
PLEASE REBLOG.
You may’ve seen Google, Wikipedia (source of the above image), John Scalzi’s site, Reddit, boing boing, Creative Commons and other sites/groups supporting a “blackout” of their own sites today, to stop the “Stop Internet Piracy Act” and “Protect Intellectual Property Act”, neither of which do anything of the sort.
In fact, the The “Stop Internet Piracy Act” is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site’s ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
“Fair use is a lawful use of copyright.”
That’s what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we as fans do on the internet - on fandom-specific sites and on the wider internet - is fair use, but there’s no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
“Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don’t like,” writes TechDirt’s Mike Masnick. “With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review.”
If a site can’t accept donations via PayPal, or payments from AmEx or MasterCard or GooglePayments or Amazon, no matter how large they are, they won’t be able to keep the site online. If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn’t agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, we may lose the ability to accept donations or be paid by users like you.
YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That’s not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please contact your Senator and your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF’s website and have an email automatically sent to your representative. If you don’t live in the US, please make sure your friends who do are aware of what this bill says and what it could do.MarkReads has some links here and another roundup of info here. Check out reddit.com for more information, and view their video about SOPA and PIPA’s destructive capabilities here. Be amused, and be scared, by The Oatmeal’s explanation of what could happen to humorists, parodists, creative mash-up artists, social media users, rebloggers and creative fandomers.
The worst part of SOPA and PIPA is that the worst case scenarios are extremely likely, plausible and conceivable.
The good news is, the White House has threatened a veto of the bills as they were last week, and the House has put off votes for the immediate future, because we on the internet - we content creators and we content distributors and we content users - have said no, this proposed law is bad and will destroy something we need, use and love.
We can’t sit down now.
Check the sites out and do what you can to stop SOPA and PIPA.
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Link reblogged from That Girl With The Trollpunks
Major game companies Nintendo, Sony and Electronic Arts have quietly removed themselves from the official list of organizations that support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
On the surface, the gaming companies probably threw their support to the bill because it would…
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Link reblogged from you give up this poisonous dream ... you come home
We did it — at least for now. The House Judiciary Committee looked certain to vote for the Stop Online Piracy Act today.
Instead, because of the work of so many rank-and-file Internet users, the bill’s lead sponsor acknowledged that our concerns are legitimate, and adjourned the committee…
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Link reblogged from WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR
That unions and artists are some of those spearheading SOPA and PIPA is at once troubling and sad.
I am appalled that my union, The Screen Actor’s Guild, officially supports SOPA. I doubt it matters, but I am at least one member who is disgusted by the guild’s misguided support for extremely bad legislation that will do NOTHING to actually curb or stop IP theft.
Wil isn’t the only creative person who thinks that SOPA is the wrong way to protect IP theft. There’s a fantastic article explaining why Justin Bieber’s early career on YouTube, covering pop classics and uploading them, could, if done with SOPA as law (and if he wasn’t Canadian) result in jail time for young Justin.
… the real problem here is just how broadly this is drafted, because no matter what the true intentions may be, the fact that it very easily could be read this way is quite troubling. He notes that there is simply
no defense for broad drafting of a new felony in U.S. criminal law. When crafting a criminal statute with serious jail time at stake, it’s incumbent on the legislators to properly narrow the scope of the law, rather than to write a really broad law and then count on prosecutorial discretion to ensure it isn’t misapplied.
And that’s really the key issue. The fact that you can construct a very credible argument that the law puts Bieber in jail… even if others can construct an argument that it doesn’t is a huge problem in and of itself. -
Post reblogged from
spinningthroughaworldinmotion:
They just entered in “The Internet is for Porn” into the record.
Random IP law fact: Entering copyrighted works into the record without the permission of the copyrightholder is legal and not an infringement of the copyrighted work.
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UPDATED STOP SOPA POST
PLEASE REBLOG. Originally posted in November, 2011.
Sometime in the last month, you may’ve seen the above image at OccupyTheGame.com, or seen the letter from Google, Yahoo!, Mozilla, eBay, Creative Commons and other sites/groups in the New York Times today about the “Stop Internet Piracy Act”, which does nothing of the sort.
In fact, the The “Stop Internet Piracy Act” is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site’s ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
“Fair use is a lawful use of copyright.”
That’s what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we as fans do on the internet - on fandom-specific sites and on the wider internet - is fair use, but there’s no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
“Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don’t like,” writes TechDirt’s Mike Masnick. “With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review.”
If a site can’t accept donations via PayPal, or payments from AmEx or MasterCard or GooglePayments or Amazon, no matter how large they are, they won’t be able to keep the site online. If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn’t agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, we may lose the ability to accept donations or be paid by users like you.
YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That’s not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF’s website and have an email automatically sent to your representative. If you don’t live in the US, please make sure your friends who do are aware of what this bill says and what it could do.MarkReads has some links here and another roundup of info here.
Check them out and do what you can to stop SOPA.
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Link reblogged from you give up this poisonous dream ... you come home
Exactly what it sounds like. Senator Wyden is going to read the names of every single person who opposes these bills on the Senate Floor, a process that can take hours. You can add your name to the list by clicking the above.
Let’s not forget about this, guys.
Adding the name Iyama Dicquebutt.
When I read this, I literally applauded the man while sitting in front of my damn laptop.
I’ve added my name.
Add yours? I don’t think you have to be a US resident or citizen - and this is your chance to get your name in the Congressional Record for all time, standing up for something imporant!
