73 replies to this topic

[DarkBlaze557]

We don't often like to get into political squabbles here at XC, but this is important and impacts all of us.

I'm sure most of you are already fully aware of this by now, but for those that aren't, I'd like to briefly offer you some education and Xerocreative's stance on this important matter.

SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect Intellectual Property Act) are currently being tossed around the U.S. Congress (SOPA in the Senate and PIPA in the House), hoping to get the U.S. government involved in anti-piracy fronts. These specific bills look to censor the Internet in the United States and give power to the media industries.

In their current forms, if these bills are passed, it is entirely possible for Xerocreative to get shutdown for showing a picture of an anime character, for having songs on our profiles, or for hosting YVD. These bills give those companies the power to shut us down without Due Process and it gets worse. Bigger sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit could easily get shutdown just for posting character biographies or jokes about copyrighted characters. It gets bigger and worse than that, but I don't want to talk your ears off.


If you wish to educate yourself further on these bills, you'll find links to them below:
SOPA
PIPA


Xerocreative stands strongly against these bills and we are one of many. There is an Internet-wide protest occurring today called the SOPA Blackout to express our disdain towards these bills. Large names such as Wikipedia and Reddit are participating, and Google is even taking their stance against this with a custom home page and even a petition which you can view here. (We aren't doing the blackout because we want you guys to have something to do today)

For those of you that are in the United States, I highly suggest that you write to your local Congressman/Congresswoman and let your voice be heard. Click on the link above to sign Google's petition and make sure that your friends are educated on this matter as well.

Here is a link to the contact information of U.S. elected officials.

For those of you outside the United States, please write to your ministry of foreign affairs (or similar). Express your concerns and let it be known that these Acts can easily cause many online businesses to shutdown and many more informational resources to be destroyed.


I strongly advise that you research this further as this goes much deeper than what I can post in a quick News Post here. I also strongly advise that you help us to take action against these bills. As it stands, the vote on SOPA has been stopped temporarily (as Congress has asked for rewording), but this isn't over yet. The bill will make its way back into Congress, and we need to continue speaking out against it until it is stopped entirely.


UPDATE:
It's working!
http://gizmodo.com/5...from-awful-bill


UPDATE AGAIN:
More and more supporters from Congress are withdrawing. It looks like we've got the upper-hand!
http://www.nytimes.c...se.html?_r=2

[Sho Shinjo]

Did what I could ATM and signed the petition...

Because fuck you SOPA. So what, in the end they'd like to regulate how many times we breath per day or something?

I mean, it's not like piracy would stop if they raid the internet. Physical illegal copies would proliferate again and nothing will happen. If anything, they'll screw up the world by imposing stupid rules.

If you want to stop piracy, then start by changing the culture of the people, and stop being so effin' greedy instead of making original, legal content more expensive to "compensate for the losses".

Not that anyone would read this in a YGO forum xD But had to post it somewhere.

[kakashipwnzor]

I told my congressman to not vote for SOPA before this massive wave of people did, back when SOPA first popped up.

Also, SOPA, go die in a fire.

More specifically, a bunny fire.

Which is like a fire. For bunnies.

[Sho Shinjo]

kakashipwnzor, on 18 January 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

Also, SOPA, go die in a fire.

More specifically, a bunny fire.

Which is like a fire. For bunnies.

I knew Rescue Rabbit was up to no good...

[Exarion]

I agree with the stop the plain piracy part.
Most of those famous series are distributed over here, there are fair payed services on-line as well, but people still download them illegally just because they can.
Unlike the animes... So I would say that the responsibility for the violations hunt should belong to the distributors who acquired the rights to transmit the series. If there is no other way to watch it in your region, it can't be touched.


But, as you say, parodies and fan-art shouldn't be judged as violations like the torrents above, since they are much closer to free-speech and don't even mean an economic harm to their creators (it's almost advertising).

It all was just bad-designed, imho.

[Mana]

http://www.vice.com/...pyright-whoops.
The Author is a tool.

I say, Pirate or Die.

[Rayth Mistwalker]

For those in the UK the email address to use is webmaster [at] fco [dot] gov [dot] uk

[DarkBlaze557]

We're making progress, guys!

http://gizmodo.com/5...from-awful-bill

[Joostdegrote]

kakashipwnzor, on 18 January 2012 - 11:23 AM, said:

I told my congressman to not vote for SOPA before this massive wave of people did, back when SOPA first popped up.

Also, SOPA, go die in a fire.

More specifically, a bunny fire.

Which is like a fire. For bunnies.

I lol'd.
Furthermore;  I signed the petition with some ZIP code I googled.

[Sho Shinjo]

And this day, not even one once of soup was eaten on Spanish-speaking countries thanks to this event.

[Rayth Mistwalker]

more progress http://gizmodo.com/5...ut-against-sopa

[redeyeszack84]

The whole thing was just left to be tyranical (which is EXACTLY what the companies wanted).   This is gonna be a big thing, I mean, if Congress really DOES just simply ignore THIS much outcry... then what the heck can we do?

[Siyanor]

We can claim that because humans are called "homo sapiens" and any supporter of SOPA is neither wise nor knowing, they are not humans, and therefore do not have the rights of humans.

[DarkBlaze557]

Yet another update. Less than 24 hours later, it looks like we've won this battle!

http://www.nytimes.c...se.html?_r=2

[Harpuia]

I'll probably write up something tonight on it myself.

SOPA and PIPA must go down!

Oh and this is rich.  MSN opinion poll right now has "I have no opinion" in the lead for their question of the day at 43%.  43% have no opinion on the SOPA bill?  Really?

Edited by Harpuia, 18 January 2012 - 07:00 PM.

[Sho Shinjo]

Harpuia, on 18 January 2012 - 06:53 PM, said:

Oh and this is rich.  MSN opinion poll right now has "I have no opinion" in the lead for their question of the day at 43%.  43% have no opinion on the SOPA bill?  Really?

Must be all those guys who think "sopa" is just spanish for "soup", hence they dunno what to answer when they're asked what to think of soup D:

[kakashipwnzor]

Wait... so are they both dead, or just pushed to another day for voting?

I'm completely stupid when it comes to politics.

...Guess I could find out the easy way.

Time to go see if EQD updated yet. They did say they wouldn't today until SOPA/PIPA died, or until tomorrow.

...That's a nope. :'(

[DarkBlaze557]

SOPA/PIPA are not dead...yet.

They lost a lot of support today from many of the Congressmen/women that had previously backed it. It's a very solid sign that they stand no chance if they do go up for vote.

[Harpuia]

Maybe this will finally cause people to start rallying for future causes that threaten our liberties in the U.S.  Too long we've seen too much of our rights eroded away in the name of security and while some of it may have had good intentions, you can never trust that the next President or the next set of Congress will follow the honor system the way previous Congresses did.

[redeyeszack84]

Thing Congress needs to learn is, for a lot of people, the internet isn't just an area full of videos and porn, for alot of people, this is where they choose to LIVE.  Threaten the way people want to live, and they'll fight.

And its all for the dumbest reason EVER.  Anti-Piracy will continue to happen.  It thrived well long before internet.  Bootlegging was rampant well before the internet happened.  It shouldnt be the government that has to protect Hollywood, its Hollywood that needs to protect itself.  I mean, any other industry, if its profit margins were continuelly affected by theft, the government isn't (and shouldn't) going to step in and take away personal freedoms and constitutional rights to protect them.  Because, here's the thing... theft is already illegal.  And if they can't be protected by the authorities, then its up to them to figure how to stop it.  Kinda of like say, living in a Big City.  Your apartment is continously robbed because the lock you have is easy to pick.  What do you do?  Get better security, because its YOUR stuff, its YOUR duty to protect it, no one elses.