Friday, December 30, 2011

Fight Against SOPA for SonicGear

So you've probably heard of this SOPA thing.
Likely on the internet because it doesn't seem to make the newspapers or the TV news despite how big & bad it is. So a quick run down of the facts you need to know before getting into what it'll do to SonicGear.

1. It's some kind of huge conspiracy. I mean it's seriously bizarre. I've never seen anything like it before outside the realm of sci-fi reading material or comic books. Don't think so? Check out this video

http://youtu.be/WJIuYgIvKsc

Yes its Mike Mozart (FAILToy guy) yes he's loud / obnoxious etc but he is succinct AND very factual in a speedy manner. You can look up all of his facts via youtube if you suspect tin foil hattery. As the video goes on, it just gets weirder and weirder.

The bottom line TLDW:
Giant big money corporations purposely create & release software that steals their own content, tells people to steal the content with the software, then acts mad when people do as they're told. They want to enact a law to ruin pretty much everything entertaining that happens online.

2. WHY do they want to do this?
Videoguy suspects that it's to force everyone off the net, return the status of the world to the 1990s era, and make everyone use only regular broadcast TV to entertain themselves. But can that really be the real reason?

3. What will it ruin?
Damm near everything. It holds providers responsible for ANYthing users do. So if 1 troll uploads 1 wrong thing to somewhere..........say the host of SonicGear, the law can shut down anything owned by the host. So like youtube would die if 1 person puts 1 copyright video up. (well you know someone's going to...) Every review site, video site, music site, anything with usergen content (photo bucket, flickr, etc) link places (like Reddit, Tumblr, forums) they'd all get the ax.

4. The most IMPORTANT:
This will only pass if everyone sits around. Every single person regardless of country CAN help to stop this. It won't pass if everyone yells loud enough at their state and country rep. Send letters, make phone calls. Yell at the government & send emails. You absolutely can do something. Even if its' tweeting or posting this blog post (copy paste it / parts of it)

Things to do:
Send that Mike Mozart video to your state rep
Send it to Obama
Send it to the governor of wherever
Send it to whoever is relevant in your country if you're outside the USA
Go here: http://fightforthefuture.org/ (it's a site to help you contact, it takes like 5 mins)
Send it to the newspaper

The SOPA fools are counting on everyone being too lazy & self absorbed and just ignore it till it passes. Yes if it does people will get mad but then its too late.

What About Gear?
Gear's host, 1&1 is proud to stand against SOPA, as it should. However, it hosts millions of pages, under millions of companies, individuals & whatever else. 1 person infringes, and the whole thing could get killed. There's no server here. 1&1 is Gear's only host. You like Gear being view-able? KILL SOPA.

Gear Directly:
Sonic is copyrighted, but if anyone were to directly attack Gear, probably the video, ad, & music pages would be erased. They show clips & previews of copyrighted matter that'll be under attack first. (The killing order is video > music > art > words) each thing will be attacked in order till it's all gone if it passes. It fits the meme of "I stood by as they took my neighbor, now there's no one to stand up when they took my son"

SOPA is the WolfCry
Watch out: SOPA is a crying wolf.
What lots of people don't mention is that SOPA fits the meme of "Dont Cry Wolf". They propose this 'big bad destroyer' so that it gets shot down. Everyone wastes all their effort on this sham, then whatever's next, people are too tired of fighting, so they just let it go. They're tired of hearing 'the boy who cries wolf' so they ignore the real wolf.

What's the wolf? PIPA
PIPA is a toned down SOPA. It's like
"We're going to shoot the puppies!"
followed by
"We're going to make adult cats uncomfortable for an extended period"

NEITHER one is good, but the 2nd one doesn't sound so bad, after you read the first, does it? That's what they're counting on. Its 1 boss monster after the next. As soon as SOPA dies (if it does) PIPA will spring up and then must be defeated with the same vigor. Don't let the red herring in the way. PIPA is still bad news--especially since it's bad enough that they'd throw SOPA down in front of it to distract everyone.

You DO make a difference. Tweet. Email. Blog. Call.
Tell everyone you know.