SOPA & ACTA
Jan. 24th, 2012 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katikatWhen it comes to these two bills, I see that people are mostly angry, some downright furious. I'm not. Angry or furious, that is. I'm worried. Deeply worried. And, I freely admit it, selfishly unhappy.
Worried because who knows where this will stop. The FBI went after the owners of Megaupload - even though it's not their fault what their users do with their accounts. It's like arresting the owner of a car rental service for what their client did with the car he legally obtained from them. It's utter madness. And I'm afraid that it won't stop with movies/music/TV shows. That next, they will go after people who do fanart or write fanfiction. Who can say what will piss them off next? And who will stop them? What will be left of the internet if governments are given a free reign?
And I'm also selfishly unhappy because I do download some shows that I watch. I live in the Czech Republic. I live in a small village with no cable. Here, for example, SGA didn't air until a year after the show was canceled in the US! And EU put a kibosh on buying stuff from outside the EU - you can buy stuff only up to 22€ for free, if it costs more, you pay a LOT in VAT and customs. And Amazon UK doesn't carry all the shows I watch. Leverage S3 isn't even available for R2 yet!
So, I download some shows. Only a handful of them these days, nothing compared to what I used to watch in the past. I would be willing to pay for a legal download. Or at least, why not make the US shows available on DVD as soon as the they're finished airing for the season, the way UK shows are? (Sherlock finished airing on Jan. 15th and the DVDs were available on Jan. 22nd!) But they aren't. So, if you wait for the DVDs, the whole US based fandom moves on in the meantime. And you are basically marginalized for not living where it airs right now.
Megaupload was shut down and other servers followed. Filesonic stopped their file-sharing service completely. All you can do now is upload and download your own files. Why would I need something like that? For that I can use a flash drive. It's mad, utterly mad.
So yeah, I'm worried and I'm unhappy about the whole thing. I get why pirating is bad - but instead of trying to root it out, why not work out what the real problem is and deal with that? Why not work with these pirates and find a compromise? Why not re-work international copyright laws so that instant downloads of movies/shows are legal worldwide? Why go at it in such a ham-fisted way? Why does it feel like some higher uppers still live in the past century?
Worried because who knows where this will stop. The FBI went after the owners of Megaupload - even though it's not their fault what their users do with their accounts. It's like arresting the owner of a car rental service for what their client did with the car he legally obtained from them. It's utter madness. And I'm afraid that it won't stop with movies/music/TV shows. That next, they will go after people who do fanart or write fanfiction. Who can say what will piss them off next? And who will stop them? What will be left of the internet if governments are given a free reign?
And I'm also selfishly unhappy because I do download some shows that I watch. I live in the Czech Republic. I live in a small village with no cable. Here, for example, SGA didn't air until a year after the show was canceled in the US! And EU put a kibosh on buying stuff from outside the EU - you can buy stuff only up to 22€ for free, if it costs more, you pay a LOT in VAT and customs. And Amazon UK doesn't carry all the shows I watch. Leverage S3 isn't even available for R2 yet!
So, I download some shows. Only a handful of them these days, nothing compared to what I used to watch in the past. I would be willing to pay for a legal download. Or at least, why not make the US shows available on DVD as soon as the they're finished airing for the season, the way UK shows are? (Sherlock finished airing on Jan. 15th and the DVDs were available on Jan. 22nd!) But they aren't. So, if you wait for the DVDs, the whole US based fandom moves on in the meantime. And you are basically marginalized for not living where it airs right now.
Megaupload was shut down and other servers followed. Filesonic stopped their file-sharing service completely. All you can do now is upload and download your own files. Why would I need something like that? For that I can use a flash drive. It's mad, utterly mad.
So yeah, I'm worried and I'm unhappy about the whole thing. I get why pirating is bad - but instead of trying to root it out, why not work out what the real problem is and deal with that? Why not work with these pirates and find a compromise? Why not re-work international copyright laws so that instant downloads of movies/shows are legal worldwide? Why go at it in such a ham-fisted way? Why does it feel like some higher uppers still live in the past century?
no subject
Date: 2012-01-24 10:33 pm (UTC)As for MegaUpload, I have been reading up on it and it seems that they were asking for it. I don't think the FBI would go make a huge deal, complete with extradition and throwing accusations of money laundering, if something was seriously off. MegaUpload owners were very conspicuous (apparently the chief guy was at some point convicted for inside trading and embezzlement) and some practices (like rewarding uploading files which prove to be very popular, making explicit comments about storing infringing content) made it hard to fly under the radar, like other storage sites.
Someone did a fairly good article on the issue, which concluded neatly that yes, the timing of the arrests was in no way coincidental, but FBI shot itself in the foot - they demonstrated that no additional bill is needed, when they can come down on massive infringement-committing sites like the fist of an angry god with no extra help whatsoever.
That said, I completely agree. ACTA is wrong and it should be stopped. There's a proposition of a protest going around - if people refrain from buying/downloading music/movies/books/shows and going to the cinema for the entire March, it's entirely possible the big companies will have a very sad quarterly report. In theory that should make them think twice about pushing bills against 99,9% of their target base.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 12:48 pm (UTC)