7th's Dementia: Fuck SOPA.

At the time of this writing (Sunday the 15th), it's been announced that the White House is not going to support either SOPA or PIPA, which is a good thing. If you haven't heard about them... what the hell are you doing, living under a rock? They’re bills that, if enacted, will basically destroy the entire Internet, all in the “name” of “stopping copyright infringement.” I touched on it in the Off-Kilter Awards, but I think CR! from That Guy with The Glasses has described it the best, go check his video on it.

To be honest, censoring ANYTHING is a bad thing. In this case, though, it's worse. Pretty much anything you like on the Internet? It won't be there anymore. YouTube? Gone. Reddit? Gone. Any of your favorite reviewers who make videos, like Spoony, the Angry Video Game Nerd or the Nostalgia Critic? Gone. Let's Play? Gone. Retsupurae? Gone. DeviantArt? Gone. Fan art and fan fiction? Gone. Everything fucking gone because the industries want to protect their IP in the most fucking draconian method they could think of.

By the time this goes up, it'll have been done, but Reddit going down on the 18^th, with other sites joining them? A good fucking idea. There's also some companies related to gaming who don't like it either. Epic Games, Riot Games, Runic Games, Mojang, Bungie, Red 5, Trion Worlds, and Razer have all stated that they are all against SOPA. Hell, Red 5 is shutting down everything for Firefall on the 18^th as well, and cancelled their E3 appearance in protest of the Entertainment Software Association supporting this piece of bullshit bill.

Oh, you didn't know that? Now you do.

Now, I'm not saying that piracy is a good thing. It's not. It's horrible. The way that SOPA and PIPA are written, though, makes it hard to discern between Fair Use and piracy. Both are vaguely worded, and give the corporations the power to sue someone over ANYTHING and NOT have it go to court. Yes, piracy needs to be stopped, but this isn't the fucking way to do it. This isn't the fucking way to do fucking ANYTHING.

What to do then? Write your congressman or senator. Tell them that these bills will only CREATE more problems in the long run. Tell them you think that this bill does more harm than good, and if they support it, and continue to support it, you'll be voting for their opponent come Election Day. Go to keepthewebopen.com. Find out what you can do. Write the ESA, tell them that you think they are being hypocritical after they asked for the people's support after they wanted to ban violent video games, but now want to silence the Internet. DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN JUST SIT ON YOUR ASS WHILE THE “REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE” DO SOMETHING THE PEOPLE DON'T WANT. FIGHT FOR THE INTERNET. If you do nothing, you're a horrible person, I'm fucking sorry, but it's true. Doing nothing is the same as supporting this piece of horseshit bill.

I can't do as much as any other member of CA because I'm Canadian. But if this piece of elephant-shit bill passes? We'll be next. And if that happens?

Let's just say one word: REVO-FUCKING-LUTION.

ADDED TUESDAY THE 17TH: Alright, after I wrote this up, I found out two things: the White House is against SOPA and PIPA... but the MPAA is still spearheading to get it through, despite the mass Internet blackout in protest of it. In fact, they called the whole thing, which now has Wikipedia and Tumblr joining it (surprised Facebook isn't/didn't), an “abuse of power.” No, it's not an abuse of power. You know what an abuse of power is?

SPENDING $94,000,000 TO GET A FLAWED PIECE OF BLUE WHALE SHIT BILL THROUGH CONGRESS. Jesus Christ, calling the kettle black, are we?

You know who's also against it? They Might Be Giants. Wil Wheaton. David Willis, the guy who does Shortpacked!. Logan Decker, editor-in-chief of PC Gamer. Gary Whitta, former EIC of PC Gamer, now movie writer (Book of Eli).

I know, in America, corporations are people. However, by this logic, you have maybe 5 “people” lobbying for it, and maybe over, what, 100 million actual people against it. Doesn't seem fair, does it? Yeah, my original ending still stands. MAKE YOURSELF HEARD.

And you know what? FUCK YOU, MPAA. You've just insured I won't be going out to the movie theaters any time soon. 99.9% of the movies released today are shite anyway. Hell, I'm not even watching anything on E3 this year because of this stupid piece of draconian legislature. Piracy is bad, but censorship is even worse.

Censorship? More like censorshit.

ADDED WEDNESDAY THE 18TH: Alright, adding some more stuff. So apparently, the guys over at ScrewAttack, Loading Ready Run, and Extra Credits are urging everyone to not support E3 because it's the ESA's biggest moneymaker and not supporting it would show that supporting SOPA and PIPA is a bad idea. I agree. Here's the video they made:

So, yeah, I'm not paying attention to E3 this year. Same reason I'm not watching any movies coming out this year.

Not to mention, there's MORE famous people against it, there's Aziz Ansari, Paul F. Tompkins, Neil Gaiman, Lloyd Kaufman, The Lonely Island, Trent Reznor, Patton Oswalt, Adam Savage, OK Go, and those are the ones I recognize.

So yeah, this is a big deal. Really big deal. Not doing anything is practically letting them win. I urge you to call your congressman or senator, and tell them they need to vote NO on this draconian piece of legislature and protest as hard as you can. It's getting close to the day where they vote on PIPA. It needs to be stopped NOW.