Hollywood Believes The Time Is Ripe To Bring Back SOPA
from the not-this-bullshit-again dept
It’s been twelve years since the big SOPA/PIPA fight. I’ve been talking with a few folks lately about how it feels like many people have either forgotten that story or weren’t paying attention when it happened. Two years ago, we did a 10-year retrospective on the fight, and it feels like some people need a refresher. Most notably, Charles Rivkin, the head of the MPA (formerly the MPAA), certainly appears to need a refresher because he just announced it’s time to bring back SOPA.
For the young ones in the audience, SOPA (and its Senate companion, PIPA) were bills pushed strongly by the film (MPA) and recording (RIAA) industries. They were pushing for “site blocking” for websites that the industries accused of being “dedicated to piracy.” The law was a slam dunk. It had a huge number of co-sponsors, and the MPA/RIAA combo had convinced Congress to pass ever more expansive copyright laws basically every two to three years for the past 25 years. SOPA was set to become law.
Until it wasn’t. Because the public spoke up loudly. I (coincidentally) was at the Capitol on the day of the big Internet Blackout in protest of SOPA/PIPA, and I heard the phones ringing off the hook. I was running up and down the halls of the office buildings, having Reps. tell me how they were removing their names from the co-sponsor list. The public spoke up and it worked.
But it’s important to remember why it worked: because the law was a horrific attack on free speech and the open web. And for no good reason.
We spent much time explaining why this would be a clear violation of the First Amendment. Under the First Amendment, you cannot shut down an entire publishing house just because it sometimes has published works that contain, say, defamation. You cannot ban access to a photocopying machine because some users use it to infringe. SOPA was basically built-in prior restraint.
You can only target the actually violative content and not declare entire sites be blocked. That goes way beyond what the First Amendment allows.
On top of that, it’s dangerous. First, as was made clear at the time, site blocking of that nature would fuck with underlying technological protocols that are designed to return sites on request. In particular, it would break DNSSEC, which remains an important bit of security online.
There is also the very real risk of false positives. We have plenty of examples of this. During the run-up to SOPA, Universal Music actually declared hip-hop star 50 Cent’s personal website to be dedicated to infringing content. Also, the risk of collateral damage is very real. In the past, we’ve had stories of orders to block a single site, not realizing it was on a shared server, that ended up with tons of sites blocked as collateral damage.
All that is to say: site blocking is bad, doesn’t work, isn’t needed, would cause real damage, and much, much more.
And so of course the MPA and Rivkin are trying to bring it back. In a speech earlier this week, Rivkin laid out the “state of the industry.” He pulled out all the old debunked hits from a decade ago about how piracy was killing Hollywood and blah blah blah. The problem is, it’s just not true. Earlier this year we released our latest Sky is Rising report, which again showed that Hollywood is thriving, and that piracy was never a particularly serious problem.
Indeed, the only reason there’s recently been a small increase in infringing use is because the big streaming companies (who are all members of the MPA) have started implementing a bunch of bullshit policies designed to annoy users and to squeeze them for more money, while giving less in return. The cause of piracy is the MPA members themselves.
But, alas, Rivkin insists that site blocking is the only answer to his own members’ failures to treat customers right:
So today, here with you at CinemaCon, I’m announcing the next major phase of this effort: the MPA is going to work with Members of Congress to enact judicial site-blocking legislation here in the United States.
For anybody unfamiliar with the term, site-blocking is a targeted, legal tactic to disrupt the connection between digital pirates and their intended audience.
It allows all types of creative industries – film and television, music and book publishers, sports leagues and broadcasters – to request, in court, that internet service providers block access to websites dedicated to sharing illegal, stolen content.
Let’s be clear: this approach focuses only on sites featuring stolen materials. There are no gray areas here.
Site-blocking does not impact legitimate businesses or ordinary internet users. To the contrary: it protects them, too.
And it does so within the bounds of due process, requiring detailed evidence establishing a target’s illegal activities and allowing alleged perpetrators to appear in a court of law.
Almost everything Rivkin says here is bullshit. Hollywood is thriving these days. They had a blip due to COVID, but there is no indication, at all, that “piracy” has ever been a problem, let alone now. Rivkin tosses out bullshit numbers claiming massive job and revenue losses from piracy, and those numbers come from laughably bad studies that often assume every infringing copy is a lost sale. Or they lump in claims of “trademark infringement” to argue that every counterfeit product is the same as someone downloading a movie they would never have paid for in the first place.
But, more importantly, site blocking is 100% prior restraint and unconstitutional in the US. There is no serious due process in any site blocking regime, and every attempt has resulted in all sorts of bogus blocks and takedowns, many of which we’ve detailed over the years.
Rivkin’s claims that there “are no gray areas” and that it “focuses only on sites featuring stolen materials” would sound a lot better if we didn’t have a long list of bogus seizures of sites based on lies told by the RIAA and MPA. Remember Dajaz1? That site was seized by the government because the RIAA lied and claimed it featured infringing content. It did not. It was a music blog that the industry itself would often send material to in an effort to hype up artists.
Or how about OnSmash? It was another blog that the recording industry regularly sent tracks to as a promotional gambit, only to then claim it was a pirate site. It was seized and the government ignored requests to return it for FIVE YEARS, before finally handing it back to the original owner with no charges filed and no apology.
There are many more examples like this of sites being seized by the government based on outright lies by the industry. There is no due process. There is no fairness. It absolutely destroyed “legitimate businesses and ordinary internet users.”
Rivkin is lying. He’s hoping that people are too distracted with things like generative AI and fights over Section 230 to realize that they’re bringing back SOPA and looking to destroy the open internet once again.
Do not let this move forward. If Rivkin is mentioning it, it means he has the MPA’s usual crew of bought-and-paid-for Congressional Reps and Senators ready to spring into action.
Congress is going to need to be reminded why the internet stood up and said “NO!” last time SOPA/PIPA came around. They need to be reminded why they’ve stayed away from copyright law for the most part all these years, realizing it had become a third rail issue. The MPA bringing SOPA back suggests they think internet users are distracted and have moved on.
We’re going to need to show Rivkin that he’s wrong.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, charles rivkin, copyright, pipa, prior restraint, site blocking, sopa
Companies: mpa, mpaa
Comments on “Hollywood Believes The Time Is Ripe To Bring Back SOPA”
Europe, too
This sort of thing has also seen a surprisingly unrecognised push in the EU by way of their counterfeiting/piracy toolbox. It’s looking like it’s a global thing, not just in the US.
https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/publications/commission-recommendation-measures-combat-counterfeiting-and-enhance-enforcement-intellectual_en
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Europe has never had the First Amendment, so that’s less surprising.
I find this noteworthy as yet another attack against the US’s First Amendment, while the First Amendment holds firm in protecting Nazis and seditionists.
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It’s moreso that it’s the same wording and ideas as what Rivkin says, and that they’re going at this from several fronts. This time they’re trying to push through SOPA not just in the US, but also in the EU – and it’s disturbing how they have politicians’ ears, regardless of what those politicians govern.
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Right-wing authoritarianism is a global trend right now.
I’m sure the NewsMax crowd will be here to screech that Europe is “communist” or whatever.
Breaking the internet to protect the interests of a few wealthy people, though, is objectively right-wing.
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Considering the current leading EU party is, by their own definition, centre-right, they’re hardly communist. It’s only really them showing their true colours when it comes to the market. It’s not a New situation, this current party has been crazed and maximalist about copyright specifically for a while now- but it’s still disheartening how it keeps going.
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Oh, I know. But TD is largely Americans, and even educated Americans are shit at political analysis. The uneducated Americans who consume right wing media are now and forever convinced that the EU in general is a Communist dystopia.
Re: Re: Re:4
Or socialist, they seem to conflate the two regularly whilst not knowing anything about political systems of governance.
Re: Re: Re:5
Everything they want to know about political systems of governance, they learn from the grunts and stupid faces that Tucker Carlson makes.
Re: Re: Re:4
Too much algebra, not enough anything else, that’s why. Seriously, Federal Government, there’s no need to make everyone in the States a nuclear physicist any more.
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Things like SOPA keep coming around again because they involve a conflict between free speech rights and property rights. Somebody’s getting their rights violated, we’re just arguing over who and how much.
There’s no conflict when it comes to nasty speech. It is allowed, with a few narrow exceptions.
That’s why Nazi speech is thriving while the world of online copyright is 24/7 drama and bad laws.
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That sounds like exactly what I said, wrapped up to be more palatable.
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Right. We’ve acknowledged as a society that it is occasionally necessary to limit the First Amendment at times.
Stopping a genocide is not a good enough reason.
Protecting rich people’s imaginary property is a good enough reason.
Re: Re: Re:2
We’re talking about laws that restrict private speech. We stop private attempts to commit genocide with laws against murder. If you actually try to kill even one person — let alone an entire group of people — that’s illegal.
But that’s moot, of course, because in reality genocide is carried out by governments. You can’t prevent a government from carrying out genocide by giving the government more censorship power. Use common sense.
Re: Re: Re:3
*whooooosh!*
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Do we know how likely this is to pass in the EU? Also the EU courts have done pretty well to protect free speech.
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not sure but i have high hopes that the courts will fight back
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Yeah, but will EU courts let me Sieg Heil past my Jewish neighbor’s house every day?
“Free speech” indeed.
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That not Free speech at all but targeted harassment.
Re: Re: Re:2
What if I do it up and down the whole block, and it just happens to start and end in front of my Jewish neighbor’s house?
Re: Re: Re:3
It’s still targeted harassment because you specifically mentioned that your neighbor is Jewish and you know that indicating how high Hitler can jump is likely upsetting, trying to obfuscate those actions actually makes it even clearer it is targeted at your neighbor.
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Actually, you can shout “sieg heil” in your house all you want under your free speech rights, but when you get arrested for doing it outside your Jewish neighbors’ house, it’s your conduct being restricted, not your speech.
It was only a matter of time with the bipartisan KOSA push in the foreground.
Are pols on both sides of the aisle still touting the “success” of FOSTA?
If the captains of industry are unable/unwilling to stop the spread of misinformation, why should anyone listen to their machinations about piracy?
At least pirates do not try and get you to inject chlorine or ingest horse dewormer. I would not be surprised to see an anti-eclipse glasses hoax.
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The rule of law in the US is tailored to protecting the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
The people making the laws listen because money.
We listen because of the armed, violent, blue-uniformed gangs they employ.
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Re: Re:
defeatism troll
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Re: Re: Re:
That’s clearly your new favorite word and all, but acknowledging reality and history is not “defeatism.”
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Re: Re: Re:2
excuses
Re: Re: Re:3
Feel free to cite demonstrated, ethical methods that the poor can use to significantly change even one country for the better and how and why it would be possible to coordinate that method in the US in respect to our economy, politics, and social status quo.
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Re: Re: Re:4
I’m afraid trying to get anything beyond buzzwords out of that user is an exercise in futility. It appears to be a centrist liberal cargo-cult-copying rightoid tactics without understanding why they resonate.
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Re: Re: Re:5
your the person that advocates for violence dumb ass
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Re: Re: Re:6
Fuck off andrea.
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Re: Re: Re:7
said the person in the brazil article that literally advocated for violence upon people that has a different opinion then them
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Re: Re: Re:8
Except that never happened. So you’re just telling lies to elevate fascists via false equivalence.
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Re: Re: Re:9
that’s a lie even stone told you that violence is not needed yet
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Re: Re: Re:10
He didn’t say it in response to me advocating for what you’re accusing me of.
Your assertion is that I said “A.”
Your evidence is that Stone said “B.”
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Re: Re: Re:11
becuase it was to you he just replied to a different comment of yours
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Re: Re: Re:12
Someone else’s words are not evidence of my words.
If my words are what you say my words are, then you should be able to find the evidence without having to point at someone else’s words instead.
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Re: Re: Re:13
your a dumbass i swear to god
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Re: Re: Re:14
That would be one of what I can only assume are a thousand idiotic things you’ve sworn to God.
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Re: Re: Re:15
are you just gonna flood this comment section?
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Re: Re: Re:16
Are you going to keep pretending you’re not andrea?
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Re: Re: Re:17
it’s amazing that you still think am andrea amazing
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Re: Re: Re:18
I am going to think whoever the fuck I think you are.
Don’t like it? Tough shit, I’m an enby motherfucker!
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Re: Re: Re:19
i see your getting upset i see
Re: Re: Re:8
As that one asshole…
Lemme repeat myself.
The Overton Window has moved so far right that violence is now part of the conversation.
Advocating for self-defense as the absofuckinglute bare fucking minimum to protect yourself, your loved ones AND your private property is still within 1A, and more importantly, not advocating for preemptive political violence against an enemy that would fucking murder us all on Trump’s command.
While I hope we never have to resort to that, I do not have any hope that it will be possible.
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Re: Re: Re:9
self defense you said to out right shoot them
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Re: Re: Re:10
Only in self-defense.
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Re: Re: Re:11
then your smart am only arguing cuase some others outright wanted violence not in a self defense way but in a murder way
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Re: Re: Re:12
No. That’s just a story you’re telling to create a false equivalence.
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Re: Re: Re:13
another parrot speaking the same things over and over again
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Re: Re: Re:14
Says the person parroting the same thing over and over with no evidence.
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Re: Re: Re:15
you also have no evidence that am andrea
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Re: Re: Re:9
so your a sane one that’s nice
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Re: Re: Re:10
More than can be said of you, andrea.
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Re: Re: Re:11
i hate andrea so why would i be andrea?
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Re: Re: Re:12
Self-loathing would certainly explain a lot, andrea.
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Re: Re: Re:13
your a idiot literally your so stupid you think am andrea
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Re: Re: Re:14
Fuck off, andrea.
Re: Re: Re:9
This needs repeated all day, every day, 366 days a year.
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Re: Re: Re:9
The beautiful thing is we’ll shoot first and win, because degenerate Leftists never train or even stockpile. You all don’t stand a chance when real fascism starts!!
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Re: Re: Re:7
you really are dumb am not andrea i don’t even show my name
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Re: Re: Re:8
There aren’t that many commenters here who are both as stupid and as bad at English as you, andrea. Posting as AC doesn’t hide who you are.
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Re: Re: Re:9
but the real andrea never gos ac
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Re: Re: Re:10
Says the real andrea, while pretending to be someone else and posting as AC.
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Re: Re: Re:11
i could be a different person entirely
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Re: Re: Re:12
I could be the ghost of Hugo Chavez.
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Re: Re: Re:13
yet am not andrea
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Re: Re: Re:14
As a ghost, I’m actually able to see that you are andrea.
Fuck off, andrea.
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Re: Re: Re:15
keep calling me andrea
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Re: Re: Re:16
I will do so until the day you fuck off, andrea.
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Re: Re: Re:5
since i know your the same user that said to kill all trump supporters
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Re: Re: Re:6
Nobody said that though. So you’re just telling lies to try to create a false equivalence, as fascists do.
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Re: Re: Re:7
look at the brazil article dumbass
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Re: Re: Re:8
Just did. It’s not there.
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Re: Re: Re:9
buddy are you oblivious?
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Re: Re: Re:10
I’m not oblivious to the false equivalence you’re working to create.
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Re: Re: Re:11
face slams
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Re: Re: Re:12
Good. Do it harder.
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Re: Re: Re:13
what you mean by that?
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Re: Re: Re:14
The face slams. Don’t stop til you taste pennies.
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Re: Re: Re:15
so your confessing that you are stupid have a great day
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Re: Re: Re:16
Bye andrea!
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Re: Re: Re:6
It’s not killing all Trump supporters, it’s doing them a favor.
Stupid right-ass bitch.
Re: Re: Re:4
Mass protests and making it crystal clear that anyone voting for a particularly problematic bill is ensuring that come the next election anyone but them will get the public’s votes worked out rather well the last time they tried to cram this horrible law through.
Re: Re: Re:5
also idk why he flooded the comment section thinking am andrea for some reason
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Re: Re: Re:6
I don’t think you’re andrea iravani, either. You don’t have the missing punctua\tion and capitalization… Oh, wait…
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Re: Re: Re:7
Can you seriously shut up i am not andrea jesus christ
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The only way to stop the spread of misinformation is to stop all communication between human beings.
SOPA is a terrible idea, but blaming the MPA and RIAA for a failure to alter fundamental human nature is a bit silly.
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Actually, the misinformation that led to SOPA came from the MAFIAA. Why do you think it wants to bring that Internet-destroying piece of proposed legislation back?
Back in 2010s, there was MegaUpload and YouTube (that was not really looking into copyright issues back then but to get the biggest part of the online video market, and they succeed) but today, there is a bunch of VoD services and mostly videos in social networks, and not really much new for the last 5 to 8 years.
So yes, blocking internet must be a cyclic trend. With AI surge, we cannot say that copyrights “issues” have disappears, or with all the recent ransomwares, that online security is a the top, but this has nothing to do with “piracy” (the illegal-downloading thing, not the other one where hackers downloading data from lazy companies).
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The issue with SOPA wasn’t that it ensured that copyright issues on platforms have to be blocked, it insured that entire websites have to be blocked. That’s like saying YouTube should be blocked because of its copyright infringements. It was a case of copyright maximalism then and it’s a case of copyright maximalism now. And it’s extremely disappointing that Hollywood has learned nothing.
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Actually, YouTube should be blocked if it commits copyright infringement. The problem with SOPA is that it seeks to block websites based on their users’ copyright infringements, steering a wide path around Section 230.
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The thing about YouTube is that it’s not the website that’s committing it, it’s its users that do. And even most of the time, copyright strikes are usually false as a result of YouTube’s copyright detection algorithms having a tendency to not recognize the nuisances of fair use and/or expression.
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Cat_Daddy said:
After AC said:
So, thanks for the confirmation that you’re like Toom, I guess.
It’s been 12 years and Hollywood has learned nothing. Best to keep an eye open.
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We’re still fighting the fucking crypto wars.
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Keep an eye out, and be an activist now, while you still have the choice.
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Things are different now
The rich, who can afford to own a second home abroad will not be affected
Just buy a home, set up a VPN there use that, if you can buy a second home abroad.
They can outlaw commmercial VPN services but not the protocol itself, so it is also used fur secure remote access to networks
And travellers from abroad can set up a VPN at home before they come here and use that while they are here
I have heard of britons who travel abroad doing that so they can access iPlayer while they are away
They are not breaking any laws in either Britain or the United States when they bounced off their home computers in the UK to use iPlayer while they are in America
To the bbc it will look like they are on their home computers and they will have no idea they are abroad.
Their home computers back in the UK are not subject to seizures or subpoenas by American court
When I go on road trips to Mexico I have my phone bounce off my computer to get my YouTube music and I heart playlists while I driving down there
I break no Mexican or American laws doing that while I am down there
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I use a burner phone to cross international borders. I’m usually more concerned returning to the US than leaving.
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Just wipe your phone and reinstall.
I did that when I had my online radio station and covered a figure skating event there I had to put one of their sim cards as per north korea law on cellphones.
Any evidence that I unlocked my phone and used a North Korean sim card as per Korean law was totally erased and us customs wouid have never found anything.
I broke no laws when I erased any evidence that I used a North Korean sim card when I was there
My station was in Australia and travelled often between the USA and Australia and it was station policy to wipe all station owned devices before traveling, especially to any of the 5 eyes countries
My station did not break any laws in Australia, Britain, New Zealand, Canada, or the United States when we did this.
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If North Korean law dictates use of North Korean SIM cards, then the evidence you did so is in their legislation, dipshit. Or do you expect us to believe that US Customs thinks people going out of the country for any length of time won’t use their devices the entire time they’re away?
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I does not matter anyway.
We broke no laws wiping station owned devices before taking them ovrr any international border.
It is good company policy to do so since you don’t know what may be on your phone.
In the around 200 countries around the world there is no law in any one of them that makes it a crime to wipe your devices before travel
And contrary what some think here the dmca doess not apply to personal use.
Re: Re: Re:3
Read and learn: the DMCA does not contain a carve out for personal use, dipshit.
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Just like the tilktok ban they want, the government could use that to ban any website they want
I.may come into money soon and when I do I do plan to buy a condo in either Tijuana, Rosarito, or Ensenada and park a computer with a VPN on it downn there.
Even if vpns are blocked there is still the trick o mentioned once that I used at Taco Bell to bypass their blockage of VPNs, doing an SSL into my network and then using 192.168.0.2, the internal address on my network, and their firewall let it right through.
Contrary to what some people might think, I broke no laws in either California, Queensland, Texas, Kansas, France, Germany, or any federal laws in either Australia, or the United States bypassing the Bells blocking of vpns
I had redundant servers in Arizona, California, Kansas, Texas, Montana, France, Britain, and Germany.
I did not break any laws in any of those places using my trick to bypass the Bell’s blocking of vpns
“the MPA is going to work with Members of Congress to enact judicial site-blocking legislation here in the United States”
So rather than spending our untaxed obscene profits on offering a better experience for paying customers, we are going to bribe & give cameos to members of Congress to just take another healthy dump on the Constitution & rule of law to protect our poor poor industry that is losing billions of dollars (yet people keep investing in our stock despite us never making a penny because of pirates.)
“It allows all types of creative industries – film and television, music and book publishers, sports leagues and broadcasters – to request, in court, that internet service providers block access to websites dedicated to sharing illegal, stolen content.”
We are just going to ignore how many of our members have demanded their own websites be blocked for offering allegedly pirated material, or the thousands of people who have gotten copyright strikes because we own a bird song or 3 min of silence. We believe we deserve to have the final say as to what citizens can do on or with the internet & if we can imagine a way it could hurt us, we can ban it.
Our last great idea was to force streamers to become cable tv with more steps, we have high hopes that killing off technology we dislike will help us stay profitable (just not on our tax returns).
The SOPA fight is something I had hoped I would never have to live through again. Profoundly disappointed to find out that it could be coming back for another round.
I have a lot of other stuff going on in Canada to report on as it is, but you don’t have to tell me twice about the importance of fighting against something like SOPA. This is not something to screw around with. Raising awareness on my end as best I can: https://www.freezenet.ca/mpa-pushing-to-bring-internet-killing-bill-sopa-back/
Ready to join the battle wherever I can.
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They’re taking the “50 ‘noes’ and 1 ‘yes’ is a ‘yes'” approach to legislating.
And why wouldn’t they? It worked wonders on Roe.
Outstanding. They can start with that site known as “X”.
I’d rather “destroy” Hollywood instead: boycott every movie and show they produce and distribute. Unlike “piracy,” that will actually reduce their revenue.
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You’re thinking too small. Hollywood’s influence is an extension of Wall Street’s influence.
Hollywood: We want to be able to shut down websites by saying the word “copyright”
Also Hollywood: By the way, we’ll be scraping every picture ever drawn in order to train bots to replace artists
Also Hollywood: We need to do this so we can make movies that we will throw in the shit-can to get the tax write-off
I can’t help but suspect that the recent anti-TikTok efforts have emboldened the AA’s to pull this heap of garbage out of the bin and try again, given a majority of US politicians have made clear that they are totally fine with blocking sits over ‘problematic’ content and if it works for one site with the excuse of National Security: Be Afraid(tm) why wouldn’t it work for the reality warping phenomenon that is copyright?
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That wouldn’t surprise me.
When artists are starving they don't care about freedom.
I recently finished reading William Deresiewicz’s Death of the Artist (2020), and while I do not agree with all of the points made by the author and I have many bones to pick with the arguments, the virtue of its interview based format paints a stark reality for the various culture based industries.
TV is thriving. The fine arts are being sustained by money laundering. But as for the rest, film has switched places with TV as the money spigot has dried up, writing barely makes you an income any more, non-fiction or otherwise, music is basically dead even if you are a successful artist with a million streams, and illustration is hardly at poverty wages. One quibble I’ll have with the author is that he basically ignores YouTube, and despite his own definition about an artist being someone who does “art” full time, he almost straight up ignores emerging media (well, at this point not so emerging), but that does not diminish the problems in traditional media. Oh, and this was in 2020, before AI made its mark. In the hundred or so odd interviews, you see a few rare success stories, followed by hundreds of stories that make you wonder how these people are even living.
At the end of the day, Bill Deresiewicz makes a key point: artists have to eat. If they are not paid enough to afford rent, then they’ll probably quit the profession, one way or another. By hook or by crook, despite real innovations like Patreon and Kickstarter, despite grandiose promises (and partly because of tech companies now becoming big corporations and trying to squeeze money from everyone), there is not enough money for the current population of artists in the US to continue. Something has to give.
It’s possible that more money could slowly come in. At present, the current generation of artists is far more willing to take brand deals. I suppose as a gen-Z’er, I can completely understand the attitude, and I always found it strange that artists did not want to take money that is offered. Artists could certainly stop shooting themselves in the foot on this front, although this won’t help everyone, and of course, everyone is already trying to do this, so it can’t be the only solution. It seems Patreon and Kickstarter have sort of plateaued as well. It’s possible that the US could try to pony up the same amount as Europe spends on the arts by % of GDP, with $70b instead of the measly $200m in the national endowment, although I doubt we’ll see that legislation being passed any time soon for various reasons.
And of course, we could wait for the number of artists to slowly decrease by Malthusian demographic changes. Trouble is, of course, artists, the kind of people who put in seven day workweeks for a poverty wage job, are hardly the kind of people who will go down without a fight. Starving people are naturally the type of people who will try to pick up every penny, and if they think increasing copyright enforcement can give them a single cent, they’ll fight tooth and nail for it.
Of course, when media gets ever more DRM-locked down and inaccessible in the name of possible money, those externalities are just borne by someone else, one supposes. Then again, so too is piracy; the miniscule loss of funding of otherwise paying customers that will lead to slightly less art is also an externality that will be borne by someone else.
I don’t like these kinds of lose-lose situations, but it appears this is where we are. I see a storm that is no longer on the horizon, but already howling gales.
The words that gave me a chill was when Bill said that he was one of the people originally in the protests against SOPA and PIPA. He has since done a complete 180 and appears to have one single position: internet bad. Even on reddit, you’ll notice a lot of self-proclaimed artists railing for copyright and against a vague sense of tech. Many people have nuance. Many people do not. Social media does its polarizing thing on the rest. But crucially, I don’t foresee that unity of voices we saw in 2012 returning any time soon.
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Probably not.
The problem here is you have groups of people desperately fighting a culture war that may or may not even exist. Gen Z’s, funnily enough, are also the generation where statistically, the two main genders are likeliest to disagree with each other politically. Both of them are convinced that they’re under attack. Whether or not that is true, or what the extent of that attack is, is by and large irrelevant. The girls are convinced that the boys are all going suck Trump off and sign away the rights to their wombs; the boys are convinced that the girls are going to make lesbian romance the only option in their vidyagames.
Even the nuanced observers are going to be drowned out by the people shrieking the loudest, either the ones losing their minds or the ones who have no problem leveraging their new position as edgy shitlord to draw in the rizz. Why wouldn’t they? They have nothing to lose by being the new thought leaders putting up a TikTok about why the men are coming for your transitioning hormones. Meanwhile the pasty old white men at the top of the food chain shrug. They’re far too well-insulated to be encountering any of the conflict.
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If you can’t see how straight males are ruining the world for the rest of us, Hyman, that’s not an us problem. That’s a YOU problem.
YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
GO THE FUCK AWAY, TERRORIST.
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Is this the madlad from Singapore who sees Hyman Rosen, Matthew Bennett, or the new AI-generated schmuck-bait Andrea Iravani at every turn?
Sorry to disappoint you, but not everyone who fails to villainize sexual majorities is a Trumpsucking MAGA supporter.
But please continue acting unhinged as an expression of true love.
Anti-SOPA
Bring back SOPA? Yeah, No. Fuck off with that Satanic Shit. SOPA stays dead and stays dead for good. Bringing back SOPA will spark Civil War among the country.
Re: Anti-SOPA
Rivkin will find himself discredited and imprisoned. The MPA will be dealt with soon enough
Anti-SOPA
SOPA is the work of Satan. SOPA Stays dead. Permanently.
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Lamar Smith is Satan? Who knew?
Hollywood’s looking at the situation in Italy right now, and absolutely salivating at what’s been carried out over there. IP address-based site blocking, on accusation, with very little recourse in the event of innocence.
To whit, the people in charge of the blocking boasted a near-100% success rate, despite them blocking a Cloudflare domain that all but shut down swathes of school and organizational websites for hours on end, even while they tried to deny to the media that the fuck-up even happened. And then claimed that the people complaining about it were spreading “fake news”. And then tried to sue other people asking for more information.
What’s going on in Italy right now is a case study of what would have happened if SOPA was passed in 2012. It’s Chris Dodd’s wet dream on steroids.