{"id":7496,"date":"2012-01-18T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T05:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=7496"},"modified":"2012-01-18T22:51:05","modified_gmt":"2012-01-19T03:51:05","slug":"why-we-support-the-fight-against-sopa-and-pipa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2012\/01\/why-we-support-the-fight-against-sopa-and-pipa\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we support the fight against SOPA and PIPA"},"content":{"rendered":"

To begin with, read this article<\/a> about a hip-hop website that got taken down by the government for completely fraudulent reasons, and the headache they had to go through to get reinstated. And then this one<\/a>, which shows why GoDaddy supported the bill and the actions it would allow. Or how about this example<\/a> of what the bills would mean for even mainstream hobbies, like sports.<\/p>\n

Now consider this: we post copyrighted material on the site every day<\/b> without permission. Go to any random review - you see that italicized block of text at the beginning, taken from the back of the packaging? The companies that released the toys own the copyright on that, and we certainly never asked their lawyers if we could reproduce it on our site. Every GI Joe filecard, every MotU bio, every explanation of what Minimates MAX are about, that stuff is copyrighted material and we're making it publicly available for free.<\/p>\n

Marvel owns the distinct appearance of Spider-Man, right? That means publishing an image of Spider-Man is copyright infringement - any image, not just scans of the comics. Here, watch this:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh snap, I just broke the law! And I brought all of OAFE down with me! That's an image of Spider-Man, and we just published it illegally. Yes, it's a photo I<\/b> took of a toy I<\/b> own, but the language of the bill is so decidedly vague that I could face criminal charges for that little piece of code. You drew a picture of Spidey and posted it online? The site hosting it is now in violation of SOPA. If that's your own site, it's in danger of being shut down. If that's a site like Deviant Art, they're also in danger of being shut down - and what do you think is more likely, that Deviant Art will actively police every image anyone uploads to make sure there are no copyrighted characters in them, or that Deviant Art will stop accepting submissions altogether rather than risk missing a single upload?<\/p>\n

Detractors of the protest against SOPA say that no company would reasonably be expected to act this way - to that we say \"who ever said anything about being reasonable?\" Do you know why contract lawyers get paid so much? Because they have to go through documents like this and find every exploitable loophole. Contracts are written so there's no wiggle room, because if they're not, somebody will find it and wiggle<\/b>! If the current economic crisis has taught us nothing, it's that companies will always act like dicks if there isn't something to say they can't.<\/p>\n

As seen in the GoDaddy story we linked to above, a site was shut down because one business complained about a bad review. Bad review? We post those all the time! Allow us to present a hypothetical situation: we'll use NECA as an example, because they're actually cool and connect with their fans, and so it's unlikely they would ever do anything like this. We choose them because while we want to show you how this situation could arise, we don't want anyone to get confused and wrongly think that anything even remotely similar has actually happened.<\/p>\n

Say we post Monkey Boy's review of the Predator two-pack<\/a>. And while Monkey Boy loved the City Hunter figure, he thought the cloaked Berserker was a really bad idea. Okay, that part wasn't hypothetical. Anyway, imagine Randy Falk reads that review, and thinks Monkey Boy's opinion is going to hurt sales. So as a representative of NECA, he calls our hosting provider and files a complaint about the content of our site. After all, that review uses the text from the back of the packaging, and that's copyrighted material. So an official from the company calls and says we're pirating their content, and even though the text was used for review purposes, the law would demand that our hosts shut us down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, to be clear: this isn't based on anything that happened. I don't know if Randy has read the two-pack review, and if he did what he thought of it, but you can bet that even if he didn't like Monkey Boy's opinion of the Berserker Predator he wouldn't be calling our host about it. NECA isn't that petty, but they're not the only company in the world. Remember when Geoff Beckett tried to get CBR to delete a message board thread because people were complaining about Shocker Toys? Yes, Geoff has matured and mellowed a lot since then, but can you honestly say the old Geoff wouldn't<\/b> have been the sort to try to get a site taken down for a bad review?<\/p>\n

But even the Geoff from several years in the past is (or was) just a single person - how about a large, faceless corporation? Consider Time Warner, the corporate megalith that owns DC Comics. They've always supported the MPAA and RIAA efforts to go after pirates, so it's no surprise they support SOPA\/PIPA. Now, how much do you think DC (with the weight of Warner Brothers behind it) likes our Hal Jordan is a pedophile<\/a> thing? It's currently protected as a parody, but we illustrate it with images from the comics they published, and that counts as piracy. Suddenly DC has a lever to use to get it taken down, because it's something that conflicts with how they want to present the character.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The MPAA is complaining<\/a> about the blackout, calling it \"bully\" tactics - which is a sure sign that something is going right. They want this bill passed because it will put the power back in their hands, rather than continuing the decentralization the internet has been accomplishing for years. It's the thrashings of a dying animal. Even traditional media outlets like Reuters are trying to downplay the impact<\/a> of the protest, claiming that no \"major\" sites are participating - \"only\" Wikipedia (the \"online dictionary?\") and Reddit. And of course, Google. Yeah, that's<\/b> not a major site or anything.<\/p>\n

SOPA is too vague and gives too much power to the corporations. No websites can afford to take a \"it probably won't apply to me\" attitude, because it absolutely can<\/b> apply to you. So we're joining the blackout because we can't allow everyone else to do our fighting for us.<\/p>\n