![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
- Чт, 12:42: Crowded Park #OccupyBandNames
- Чт, 12:43: Wizarding World with friends! #ascendio RT @UORnews: What's the FIRST thing that comes to mind when you think about #UniversalOrlando?
- Чт, 12:51: RT @DisneyD23: BREAKING NEWS: #Newsies, the New American Musical, to perform in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade®
- Чт, 14:45: I just unlocked the "Warhol" badge on @foursquare! Gallerific! http://t.co/NuIidZUC
- Чт, 14:45: I'm at Yummy Chinese (1671 Alton Road, Miami Beach) http://t.co/zavpRAON
- Чт, 16:40: RT @PennCurrent: Lunch trucks at Penn go back to the late 1800s http://t.co/kqBZJna7
- Чт, 21:44: Yuletide sign-up: Accomplished! Soapdish, Twin Peaks, The Eight and Pumped Up Kicks (yes, the song). Offers are all over the map...
- Ср, 12:58: Thank you @StarwoodBuzz for helping with my Orlando hotel reservations today!
- Ср, 13:21: #advocacyisawesome but alas it's totally the wrong day to http://t.co/04N4DG1z the front page of AOOO. #speakingpersonally
- Ср, 13:26: Tip from right now: never listen to songs from twin peaks while taking nitrous at the dentist's office.
- Ср, 15:52: Thoughts on #SOPA from a fansite: http://t.co/IpJG5Jjy #fandom #fanfic #creativity
- Ср, 16:01: RT @doctorow: Internet giants place full-page anti-#SOPA ad in #NYT http://t.co/dIQdC0ob
- Чт, 11:36: SOPA allows TPTB to go after sites w/ discussions, reviews, parodies, Fair Use-works, fan creativity, photographs, etc. (cont) #StopSOPA
- Чт, 11:36: #SOPA says a site that hosts a Fair Use-protected fanwork is the same as a site that hosts a rip of a Blu-Ray film & its extras. It's not.
- Чт, 11:48: RT @lizzwinstead: Hearing a Buzzcocks song in an AARP ad is almost too much to bear. http://t.co/ieARNNNl #AARPeteShelley
- Чт, 11:52: @TwitChange In 2010 Fandomers raised $250,000 to support Haiti @ http://help_Haiti.livejournal.com & @TheHPAlliance's #HelpHaitiHeal
- Чт, 12:42: Crowded Park #OccupyBandNames
- Ср, 12:58: Thank you @StarwoodBuzz for helping with my Orlando hotel reservations today!
- Ср, 13:21: #advocacyisawesome but alas it's totally the wrong day to http://t.co/04N4DG1z the front page of AOOO. #speakingpersonally
- Ср, 13:26: Tip from right now: never listen to songs from twin peaks while taking nitrous at the dentist's office.
- Ср, 15:52: Thoughts on #SOPA from a fansite: http://t.co/IpJG5Jjy #fandom #fanfic #creativity
- Ср, 16:01: RT @doctorow: Internet giants place full-page anti-#SOPA ad in #NYT http://t.co/dIQdC0ob
- Чт, 11:36: SOPA allows TPTB to go after sites w/ discussions, reviews, parodies, Fair Use-works, fan creativity, photographs, etc. (cont) #StopSOPA
- Чт, 11:36: #SOPA says a site that hosts a Fair Use-protected fanwork is the same as a site that hosts a rip of a Blu-Ray film & its extras. It's not.
- Чт, 11:48: RT @lizzwinstead: Hearing a Buzzcocks song in an AARP ad is almost too much to bear. http://t.co/ieARNNNl #AARPeteShelley
- Чт, 11:52: @TwitChange In 2010 Fandomers raised $250,000 to support Haiti @ http://help_Haiti.livejournal.com & @TheHPAlliance's #HelpHaitiHeal
- Чт, 12:42: Crowded Park #OccupyBandNames
Dear Yuletide Author Letter
Nov. 17th, 2011 11:39 amMove along, move along. Unless you're my Author, in which case ( I love you and thank you for what you are about to write! )
Dear Yuletide Author Letter
Nov. 17th, 2011 11:39 amMove along, move along. Unless you're my Author, in which case ( I love you and thank you for what you are about to write! )
Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zia_narratora, who showed me how to include the Post To Your Own LJ button on my earlier post about the SOPA bill. You can now reblog it to your own LJ easily - and I tweaked the content a bit, to make it more universally relevant, too.
There's an interesting look at the law on Time Magazine's Techland, which includes this quote:
The thing is, they're ignoring the impact that the law would have on sites that host discussions, reviews, parodies, Fair Use-works, fan creativity, photographs, and more. The revenue streams of rogue websites? SOPA says that a site that hosts a Fair Use-protected fanwork is the same as a site that hosts a rip of a Blu-Ray film and all its extras.
It's not.
I haven't seen much discussion of the specific impact that SOPA could make on fansites of all types - sports, books, films, niche groups. Look to the portion of the law that deals with blocking revenue. Many smaller, "noncommercial" sites (those with very little ad/associate revenue) are funded by the users, who donate monthly or annually to keep the sites online. PayPal, AmazonPayments, Google Checkout - those services allow these niche sites to thrive and focus on smaller communities and interests. And sometimes, the costs for the servers can be hundreds of dollars a month if there's enough discussion going on, or if people are sharing fan-created works that fall under Fair Use. How many of those sites will be cut off because The Powers That Be don't like a topic or a discussion taking place on the site? We saw what Righthaven did these last two years, using the DMCA to bully sites; SOPA - as it ignores the concept of Fair Use - is just a sop for IP rights bullies to shut down discussions that they don't agree with.
Imagine you're the fictional university of Nepp State, and you don't like people using your uniform or logo to criticize the systematic abuse and cover-up by coaches of the Quodpot Team. You hold a trademark (it doesn't even have to be registered) in your logo and jersey design, so you use SOPA to complain to PayPal and GoogleAds about the sites that have icons showing the "ghostbusters" symbol over your jersey design. Under SOPA, PayPal and GoogleAds would have five days to cut off the site's account, payments, and ability to accept donations from its users and the trademark holder can go to the Justice Department to ask that the site's DNS be blocked - while there's a provision that allows the site to remove the content in those five days, that's in the realm of censorship. Gigaom touches on these issues as they pertain to activists like OWS.
I don't normally link to RedState but their summary of the situation and its impact on free speech is well-put.
And here's the perspective of some engineers at DSLReports
The EFF writes about the impact of SOPA on Flickr, Etsy and Vimeo. Did you know that buildings are protected by copyright and sometimes trademark? Take a photo in front of one and put it on Facebook or Flickr (or YouTube, or a print you're selling at etsy) and you're putting yourself and the site at risk.
What will you stop doing if SOPA becomes law?
zia_narratora, who showed me how to include the Post To Your Own LJ button on my earlier post about the SOPA bill. You can now reblog it to your own LJ easily - and I tweaked the content a bit, to make it more universally relevant, too. There's an interesting look at the law on Time Magazine's Techland, which includes this quote:
On the margin…DNS filtering will no doubt reduce piracy. But what we have to ask ourselves is, at what cost? And that cost is legitimizing government blacklists of forbidden information… The result could be a virtually broken Internet where some sites exist for half the world and not for the other. The alternative is to leave the DNS alone and focus (as the bills also do) on going after the cash flow of rogue websites. As frustrating as it must be for the content owners who are getting ripped off, there are some cures worse than the disease.
The thing is, they're ignoring the impact that the law would have on sites that host discussions, reviews, parodies, Fair Use-works, fan creativity, photographs, and more. The revenue streams of rogue websites? SOPA says that a site that hosts a Fair Use-protected fanwork is the same as a site that hosts a rip of a Blu-Ray film and all its extras.
It's not.
I haven't seen much discussion of the specific impact that SOPA could make on fansites of all types - sports, books, films, niche groups. Look to the portion of the law that deals with blocking revenue. Many smaller, "noncommercial" sites (those with very little ad/associate revenue) are funded by the users, who donate monthly or annually to keep the sites online. PayPal, AmazonPayments, Google Checkout - those services allow these niche sites to thrive and focus on smaller communities and interests. And sometimes, the costs for the servers can be hundreds of dollars a month if there's enough discussion going on, or if people are sharing fan-created works that fall under Fair Use. How many of those sites will be cut off because The Powers That Be don't like a topic or a discussion taking place on the site? We saw what Righthaven did these last two years, using the DMCA to bully sites; SOPA - as it ignores the concept of Fair Use - is just a sop for IP rights bullies to shut down discussions that they don't agree with.
Imagine you're the fictional university of Nepp State, and you don't like people using your uniform or logo to criticize the systematic abuse and cover-up by coaches of the Quodpot Team. You hold a trademark (it doesn't even have to be registered) in your logo and jersey design, so you use SOPA to complain to PayPal and GoogleAds about the sites that have icons showing the "ghostbusters" symbol over your jersey design. Under SOPA, PayPal and GoogleAds would have five days to cut off the site's account, payments, and ability to accept donations from its users and the trademark holder can go to the Justice Department to ask that the site's DNS be blocked - while there's a provision that allows the site to remove the content in those five days, that's in the realm of censorship. Gigaom touches on these issues as they pertain to activists like OWS.
I don't normally link to RedState but their summary of the situation and its impact on free speech is well-put.
And here's the perspective of some engineers at DSLReports
The EFF writes about the impact of SOPA on Flickr, Etsy and Vimeo. Did you know that buildings are protected by copyright and sometimes trademark? Take a photo in front of one and put it on Facebook or Flickr (or YouTube, or a print you're selling at etsy) and you're putting yourself and the site at risk.
What will you stop doing if SOPA becomes law?
Thanks to zia_narratora, who showed me how to include the Post To Your Own LJ button on my earlier post about the SOPA bill. You can now reblog it to your own LJ easily - and I tweaked the content a bit, to make it more universally relevant, too.
There's an interesting look at the law on Time Magazine's Techland, which includes this quote:
The thing is, they're ignoring the impact that the law would have on sites that host discussions, reviews, parodies, Fair Use-works, fan creativity, photographs, and more. The revenue streams of rogue websites? SOPA says that a site that hosts a Fair Use-protected fanwork is the same as a site that hosts a rip of a Blu-Ray film and all its extras.
It's not.
I haven't seen much discussion of the specific impact that SOPA could make on fansites of all types - sports, books, films, niche groups. Look to the portion of the law that deals with blocking revenue. Many smaller, "noncommercial" sites (those with very little ad/associate revenue) are funded by the users, who donate monthly or annually to keep the sites online. PayPal, AmazonPayments, Google Checkout - those services allow these niche sites to thrive and focus on smaller communities and interests. And sometimes, the costs for the servers can be hundreds of dollars a month if there's enough discussion going on, or if people are sharing fan-created works that fall under Fair Use. How many of those sites will be cut off because The Powers That Be don't like a topic or a discussion taking place on the site? We saw what Righthaven did these last two years, using the DMCA to bully sites; SOPA - as it ignores the concept of Fair Use - is just a sop for IP rights bullies to shut down discussions that they don't agree with.
Imagine you're the fictional university of Nepp State, and you don't like people using your uniform or logo to criticize the systematic abuse and cover-up by coaches of the Quodpot Team. You hold a trademark (it doesn't even have to be registered) in your logo and jersey design, so you use SOPA to complain to PayPal and GoogleAds about the sites that have icons showing the "ghostbusters" symbol over your jersey design. Under SOPA, PayPal and GoogleAds would have five days to cut off the site's account, payments, and ability to accept donations from its users and the trademark holder can go to the Justice Department to ask that the site's DNS be blocked - while there's a provision that allows the site to remove the content in those five days, that's in the realm of censorship. Gigaom touches on these issues as they pertain to activists like OWS.
I don't normally link to RedState but their summary of the situation and its impact on free speech is well-put.
And here's the perspective of some engineers at DSLReports
The EFF writes about the impact of SOPA on Flickr, Etsy and Vimeo. Did you know that buildings are protected by copyright and sometimes trademark? Take a photo in front of one and put it on Facebook or Flickr (or YouTube, or a print you're selling at etsy) and you're putting yourself and the site at risk.
What will you stop doing if SOPA becomes law?
zia_narratora, who showed me how to include the Post To Your Own LJ button on my earlier post about the SOPA bill. You can now reblog it to your own LJ easily - and I tweaked the content a bit, to make it more universally relevant, too. There's an interesting look at the law on Time Magazine's Techland, which includes this quote:
On the margin…DNS filtering will no doubt reduce piracy. But what we have to ask ourselves is, at what cost? And that cost is legitimizing government blacklists of forbidden information… The result could be a virtually broken Internet where some sites exist for half the world and not for the other. The alternative is to leave the DNS alone and focus (as the bills also do) on going after the cash flow of rogue websites. As frustrating as it must be for the content owners who are getting ripped off, there are some cures worse than the disease.
The thing is, they're ignoring the impact that the law would have on sites that host discussions, reviews, parodies, Fair Use-works, fan creativity, photographs, and more. The revenue streams of rogue websites? SOPA says that a site that hosts a Fair Use-protected fanwork is the same as a site that hosts a rip of a Blu-Ray film and all its extras.
It's not.
I haven't seen much discussion of the specific impact that SOPA could make on fansites of all types - sports, books, films, niche groups. Look to the portion of the law that deals with blocking revenue. Many smaller, "noncommercial" sites (those with very little ad/associate revenue) are funded by the users, who donate monthly or annually to keep the sites online. PayPal, AmazonPayments, Google Checkout - those services allow these niche sites to thrive and focus on smaller communities and interests. And sometimes, the costs for the servers can be hundreds of dollars a month if there's enough discussion going on, or if people are sharing fan-created works that fall under Fair Use. How many of those sites will be cut off because The Powers That Be don't like a topic or a discussion taking place on the site? We saw what Righthaven did these last two years, using the DMCA to bully sites; SOPA - as it ignores the concept of Fair Use - is just a sop for IP rights bullies to shut down discussions that they don't agree with.
Imagine you're the fictional university of Nepp State, and you don't like people using your uniform or logo to criticize the systematic abuse and cover-up by coaches of the Quodpot Team. You hold a trademark (it doesn't even have to be registered) in your logo and jersey design, so you use SOPA to complain to PayPal and GoogleAds about the sites that have icons showing the "ghostbusters" symbol over your jersey design. Under SOPA, PayPal and GoogleAds would have five days to cut off the site's account, payments, and ability to accept donations from its users and the trademark holder can go to the Justice Department to ask that the site's DNS be blocked - while there's a provision that allows the site to remove the content in those five days, that's in the realm of censorship. Gigaom touches on these issues as they pertain to activists like OWS.
I don't normally link to RedState but their summary of the situation and its impact on free speech is well-put.
And here's the perspective of some engineers at DSLReports
The EFF writes about the impact of SOPA on Flickr, Etsy and Vimeo. Did you know that buildings are protected by copyright and sometimes trademark? Take a photo in front of one and put it on Facebook or Flickr (or YouTube, or a print you're selling at etsy) and you're putting yourself and the site at risk.
What will you stop doing if SOPA becomes law?
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The ones my parents took of our family there in the 70s.
Wait, that's not what the question really means, is it? And Avengers hasn't come out yet....
My childhood favorite was Cinderella, but my grown-up all time will always watch and love is Beauty & the Beast. Toy Story 3, Little Mermaid and Lion King come really close, though.
And I don't like Snow White at all. We are, I think, going to Disney next week; anyone around?
Btw, can someone tell me how to do a Boost the Signal code in a post? Can I add it to the one I posted yesterday or doesn't have to be in a post when it's first posted?
The ones my parents took of our family there in the 70s.
Wait, that's not what the question really means, is it? And Avengers hasn't come out yet....
My childhood favorite was Cinderella, but my grown-up all time will always watch and love is Beauty & the Beast. Toy Story 3, Little Mermaid and Lion King come really close, though.
And I don't like Snow White at all. We are, I think, going to Disney next week; anyone around?
Btw, can someone tell me how to do a Boost the Signal code in a post? Can I add it to the one I posted yesterday or doesn't have to be in a post when it's first posted?
[Error: unknown template qotd]
The ones my parents took of our family there in the 70s.
Wait, that's not what the question really means, is it? And Avengers hasn't come out yet....
My childhood favorite was Cinderella, but my grown-up all time will always watch and love is Beauty & the Beast. Toy Story 3, Little Mermaid and Lion King come really close, though.
And I don't like Snow White at all. We are, I think, going to Disney next week; anyone around?
Btw, can someone tell me how to do a Boost the Signal code in a post? Can I add it to the one I posted yesterday or doesn't have to be in a post when it's first posted?
The ones my parents took of our family there in the 70s.
Wait, that's not what the question really means, is it? And Avengers hasn't come out yet....
My childhood favorite was Cinderella, but my grown-up all time will always watch and love is Beauty & the Beast. Toy Story 3, Little Mermaid and Lion King come really close, though.
And I don't like Snow White at all. We are, I think, going to Disney next week; anyone around?
Btw, can someone tell me how to do a Boost the Signal code in a post? Can I add it to the one I posted yesterday or doesn't have to be in a post when it's first posted?
That Damned SOPA Bill
Nov. 16th, 2011 03:15 pmI've been dealing this week with annoying dentistry, weirdly scheduled PTSA meetings, clients whose credit cards are not appreciated by the PTO website and the fun of trying to figure out what type of entity to be for INTA next year, and, of course, re-reading reviews of Philosopher's Stone that were posted in FictionAlley Park a year ago today (well, a year ago this month as some people saw it early) but I needed to take a few minutes today to address the SOPA act that's currently being debated* in committee in Congress, for clients, and in a post that's going up on FictionAlley this afternoon.
This is a slightly revised version of that post (Updated on November 17, 2011):
You may have seen this image on the internet today:
And you may wonder why a site like FictionAlley cares about an act designed to stop piracy; FictionAlley doesn't allow links to downloads of the Harry Potter books or films!
But the thing is, the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site's ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
"Fair use is a lawful use of copyright." That's what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we do on fansites - from the discussions and reviews to art and fic and vids we host and link to - is fair use, but there's no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
"Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don't like," writes TechDirt's Mike Masnick. "With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review."
Donations are vital to fansites; if they can't accept financial support from users and visitors, many will not be able to keep the site online; it costs between $20 and $1000 per month for servers at fansites of various sizes. Ads are vital to other sites - Googleads, the BlogHer network, store associateships, etc.
If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn't agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, it is likely that at least some sites will lose the ability to accept donations from users like you, and many will be unable to use ad revenue to keep the sites online.
And fandom-run sites are just a small portion of the internet, in the grand scheme of things. YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That's not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF's website and have an email automatically sent to your representative.
*Not the right word when only one of the six entities testifying before Congress is an Internet-purposed company!
ETA: More discussion here; this post is also on Tumblr.
Feel free to use any of this on your own LJ/DW/Blog and link back if you wish (but it's not necessary).
This is a slightly revised version of that post (Updated on November 17, 2011):
You may have seen this image on the internet today:
And you may wonder why a site like FictionAlley cares about an act designed to stop piracy; FictionAlley doesn't allow links to downloads of the Harry Potter books or films!
But the thing is, the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site's ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
"Fair use is a lawful use of copyright." That's what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we do on fansites - from the discussions and reviews to art and fic and vids we host and link to - is fair use, but there's no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
"Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don't like," writes TechDirt's Mike Masnick. "With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review."
Donations are vital to fansites; if they can't accept financial support from users and visitors, many will not be able to keep the site online; it costs between $20 and $1000 per month for servers at fansites of various sizes. Ads are vital to other sites - Googleads, the BlogHer network, store associateships, etc.
If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn't agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, it is likely that at least some sites will lose the ability to accept donations from users like you, and many will be unable to use ad revenue to keep the sites online.
And fandom-run sites are just a small portion of the internet, in the grand scheme of things. YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That's not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF's website and have an email automatically sent to your representative.
*Not the right word when only one of the six entities testifying before Congress is an Internet-purposed company!
ETA: More discussion here; this post is also on Tumblr.
Feel free to use any of this on your own LJ/DW/Blog and link back if you wish (but it's not necessary).
That Damned SOPA Bill
Nov. 16th, 2011 03:15 pmI've been dealing this week with annoying dentistry, weirdly scheduled PTSA meetings, clients whose credit cards are not appreciated by the PTO website and the fun of trying to figure out what type of entity to be for INTA next year, and, of course, re-reading reviews of Philosopher's Stone that were posted in FictionAlley Park a year ago today (well, a year ago this month as some people saw it early) but I needed to take a few minutes today to address the SOPA act that's currently being debated* in committee in Congress, for clients, and in a post that's going up on FictionAlley this afternoon.
This is a slightly revised version of that post (Updated on November 17, 2011):
You may have seen this image on the internet today:
And you may wonder why a site like FictionAlley cares about an act designed to stop piracy; FictionAlley doesn't allow links to downloads of the Harry Potter books or films!
But the thing is, the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site's ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
"Fair use is a lawful use of copyright." That's what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we do on fansites - from the discussions and reviews to art and fic and vids we host and link to - is fair use, but there's no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
"Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don't like," writes TechDirt's Mike Masnick. "With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review."
Donations are vital to fansites; if they can't accept financial support from users and visitors, many will not be able to keep the site online; it costs between $20 and $1000 per month for servers at fansites of various sizes. Ads are vital to other sites - Googleads, the BlogHer network, store associateships, etc.
If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn't agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, it is likely that at least some sites will lose the ability to accept donations from users like you, and many will be unable to use ad revenue to keep the sites online.
And fandom-run sites are just a small portion of the internet, in the grand scheme of things. YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That's not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF's website and have an email automatically sent to your representative.
*Not the right word when only one of the six entities testifying before Congress is an Internet-purposed company!
ETA: More discussion here; this post is also on Tumblr.
Feel free to use any of this on your own LJ/DW/Blog and link back if you wish (but it's not necessary).
This is a slightly revised version of that post (Updated on November 17, 2011):
You may have seen this image on the internet today:
And you may wonder why a site like FictionAlley cares about an act designed to stop piracy; FictionAlley doesn't allow links to downloads of the Harry Potter books or films!
But the thing is, the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site's ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
"Fair use is a lawful use of copyright." That's what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we do on fansites - from the discussions and reviews to art and fic and vids we host and link to - is fair use, but there's no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
"Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don't like," writes TechDirt's Mike Masnick. "With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review."
Donations are vital to fansites; if they can't accept financial support from users and visitors, many will not be able to keep the site online; it costs between $20 and $1000 per month for servers at fansites of various sizes. Ads are vital to other sites - Googleads, the BlogHer network, store associateships, etc.
If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn't agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, it is likely that at least some sites will lose the ability to accept donations from users like you, and many will be unable to use ad revenue to keep the sites online.
And fandom-run sites are just a small portion of the internet, in the grand scheme of things. YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That's not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF's website and have an email automatically sent to your representative.
*Not the right word when only one of the six entities testifying before Congress is an Internet-purposed company!
ETA: More discussion here; this post is also on Tumblr.
Feel free to use any of this on your own LJ/DW/Blog and link back if you wish (but it's not necessary).I've been dealing this week with annoying dentistry, weirdly scheduled PTSA meetings, clients whose credit cards are not appreciated by the PTO website and the fun of trying to figure out what type of entity to be for INTA next year, and, of course, re-reading reviews of Philosopher's Stone that were posted in FictionAlley Park a year ago today (well, a year ago this month as some people saw it early) but I needed to take a few minutes today to address the SOPA act that's currently being debated* in committee in Congress, for clients, and in a post that's going up on FictionAlley this afternoon.
This is a slightly revised version of that post:
You may have seen this image on the internet today:
And you may wonder why a site like FictionAlley cares about an act designed to stop piracy; FictionAlley doesn't allow links to downloads of the Harry Potter books or films!
But the thing is, the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site's ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
"Fair use is a lawful use of copyright." That's what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we do on fansites - from the discussions and reviews to art and fic and vids we host and link to - is fair use, but there's no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
"Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don't like," writes TechDirt's Mike Masnick. "With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review."
If we can't accept donations from FictionAlley's users and visitors, we won't be able to keep the site online; it costs about $3000 per year to cover our servers, domain names and other related expenses, and we appreciate all the help you give us in covering those costs. If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn't agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, we may lose the ability to accept donations from users like you.
And we're just a little site in the grand scheme of things. YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That's not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF's website and have an email automatically sent to your representative.
*Not the right word when only one of the six entities testifying before Congress is an Internet-purposed company!
This is a slightly revised version of that post:
You may have seen this image on the internet today:
And you may wonder why a site like FictionAlley cares about an act designed to stop piracy; FictionAlley doesn't allow links to downloads of the Harry Potter books or films!
But the thing is, the "Stop Internet Piracy Act" is written in such a way that it gives any owner of any copyright, trademark right, right of publicity or other intellectual property rights the ability to shut down a site's ability to accept donations made via credit card companies, PayPal or Amazon, or bar a site from hosting Google or Groupon ads or being part of the WBShop or Amazon Affiliate programs just because they think that one icon, one User Profile, one piece of fanart, one fanvid or one fanfic infringes on their content - regardless of whether that story, icon, vid or art is transformative, or created pursuant to fair use.
"Fair use is a lawful use of copyright." That's what the Northern District of California said in Lenz v. Universal Music back in 2008. So much of what we do on fansites - from the discussions and reviews to art and fic and vids we host and link to - is fair use, but there's no Fair Use provision in SOPA.
"Think about this for a second: think how many bogus DMCA takedown notices are sent by copyright holders to take down content they don't like," writes TechDirt's Mike Masnick. "With this new bill, should it become law, those same copyright holders will be able to cut off advertising and payment processing to such sites. Without court review."
If we can't accept donations from FictionAlley's users and visitors, we won't be able to keep the site online; it costs about $3000 per year to cover our servers, domain names and other related expenses, and we appreciate all the help you give us in covering those costs. If SOPA passes, and one copyright-holder who doesn't agree with the law of Fair Use complains to PayPal or Google or Amazon, we may lose the ability to accept donations from users like you.
And we're just a little site in the grand scheme of things. YouTube hosts fanvids, parodies and reviews, Tumblr and LiveJournal host every type of content that can be created, and Google links to everything. One person can choose to abuse the provisions of SOPA and damage each of those sites for everyone - or the sites themselves may curtail certain services, or limit what they allow people to share, discuss and distribute.
That's not an Internet that any of us would recognize.
If you live in the US, please send a letter to your Representative, or click here to visit the EFF's website and have an email automatically sent to your representative.
*Not the right word when only one of the six entities testifying before Congress is an Internet-purposed company!
- Tue, 16:31: RT @cadlymack: I just voted for Michael J Fox #tvgueststar #PeoplesChoice. Retweet to vote http://t.co/2xCYfcob via @peopleschoice
- Tue, 16:38: We are further from Duran Duran than DD was from Chuck Berry RT @JohnFugelsang: '80s music is to this decade what '50s music was to the '80s
- Wed, 09:26: RT @LaurelSnyder: What if there was an online "contract" bloggers could sign, regarding basic rules of journalistic integrity, and then ...
- Wed, 10:11: Sometimes, suggestions for change & turnaround are a mixed bag w/ massive #fail http://t.co/sJAMDPcZ #1997
- Wed, 10:12: RT @PennWebTeam: Good morning #SMPlus! Spread the word, @UofPenn is hiring for #socialmedia. http://t.co/XbHGRNpZ
- Wed, 10:27: Sensible letter by Google, AOL, eBay, FB, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo& Zynga re terrible, destructive IP laws http://t.co/lE4jT5xw
- Tue, 16:31: RT @cadlymack: I just voted for Michael J Fox #tvgueststar #PeoplesChoice. Retweet to vote http://t.co/2xCYfcob via @peopleschoice
- Tue, 16:38: We are further from Duran Duran than DD was from Chuck Berry RT @JohnFugelsang: '80s music is to this decade what '50s music was to the '80s
- Wed, 09:26: RT @LaurelSnyder: What if there was an online "contract" bloggers could sign, regarding basic rules of journalistic integrity, and then ...
- Wed, 10:11: Sometimes, suggestions for change & turnaround are a mixed bag w/ massive #fail http://t.co/sJAMDPcZ #1997
- Wed, 10:12: RT @PennWebTeam: Good morning #SMPlus! Spread the word, @UofPenn is hiring for #socialmedia. http://t.co/XbHGRNpZ
- Wed, 10:27: Sensible letter by Google, AOL, eBay, FB, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo& Zynga re terrible, destructive IP laws http://t.co/lE4jT5xw
Vidding Thing
Nov. 15th, 2011 05:36 pmCrossposted from cee_m:
thatmadgirl (madgirl on DW) is working with a guy to develop a resource for video editors, animators, etc... They could really use your help. If you could spread this around we'd be REALLY grateful. They're looking to beta test this website and look for ways to make this a better resource.
Pipeline was made by a PhD student studying animators, but we realized it might be a cool thing for vidders to use.
- It's a system to help organize tasks for when multiple people are working on a video.
- It could also be used for crowd sourcing (i.e., I need clips of this thing - everyone upload some for me!)
- It is a research project, but we won't bother anyone who doesn't want to be bothered, we just want people to use it.
- And we really want some vidders to use it because you're awesome.
There's a special instance of it JUST for vidders: http://pipeline.cc.gatech.edu/fandom/
Anyone can sign up. (And we apologize for the hassle if you're under 18, but if you do want to participate you're totally welcome.)
Anyone is welcome to start their own project or to contribute to the moustache vid that Casey already has in the works (or any others that might pop up).
If someone's trying to decide whether to use it and has questions, they can contact Casey at c.fiesler at gmail. Or if anyone starts using it and has questions/suggestions/etc., they can contact pipeline at cc dot gatech dot edu
I see benefits not just to vidding collaboration but on collecting vids for fancons and other events, and for having WIP vids beta-ed at various stages, but I'm also interested in seeing how y'all use it.
Check it out!
cee_m:thatmadgirl (madgirl on DW) is working with a guy to develop a resource for video editors, animators, etc... They could really use your help. If you could spread this around we'd be REALLY grateful. They're looking to beta test this website and look for ways to make this a better resource. Pipeline was made by a PhD student studying animators, but we realized it might be a cool thing for vidders to use.
- It's a system to help organize tasks for when multiple people are working on a video.
- It could also be used for crowd sourcing (i.e., I need clips of this thing - everyone upload some for me!)
- It is a research project, but we won't bother anyone who doesn't want to be bothered, we just want people to use it.
- And we really want some vidders to use it because you're awesome.
There's a special instance of it JUST for vidders: http://pipeline.cc.gatech.edu/fandom/
Anyone can sign up. (And we apologize for the hassle if you're under 18, but if you do want to participate you're totally welcome.)
Anyone is welcome to start their own project or to contribute to the moustache vid that Casey already has in the works (or any others that might pop up).
If someone's trying to decide whether to use it and has questions, they can contact Casey at c.fiesler at gmail. Or if anyone starts using it and has questions/suggestions/etc., they can contact pipeline at cc dot gatech dot edu
I see benefits not just to vidding collaboration but on collecting vids for fancons and other events, and for having WIP vids beta-ed at various stages, but I'm also interested in seeing how y'all use it.
Check it out!
Vidding Thing
Nov. 15th, 2011 05:36 pmCrossposted from cee_m:
thatmadgirl (madgirl on DW) is working with a guy to develop a resource for video editors, animators, etc... They could really use your help. If you could spread this around we'd be REALLY grateful. They're looking to beta test this website and look for ways to make this a better resource.
Pipeline was made by a PhD student studying animators, but we realized it might be a cool thing for vidders to use.
- It's a system to help organize tasks for when multiple people are working on a video.
- It could also be used for crowd sourcing (i.e., I need clips of this thing - everyone upload some for me!)
- It is a research project, but we won't bother anyone who doesn't want to be bothered, we just want people to use it.
- And we really want some vidders to use it because you're awesome.
There's a special instance of it JUST for vidders: http://pipeline.cc.gatech.edu/fandom/
Anyone can sign up. (And we apologize for the hassle if you're under 18, but if you do want to participate you're totally welcome.)
Anyone is welcome to start their own project or to contribute to the moustache vid that Casey already has in the works (or any others that might pop up).
If someone's trying to decide whether to use it and has questions, they can contact Casey at c.fiesler at gmail. Or if anyone starts using it and has questions/suggestions/etc., they can contact pipeline at cc dot gatech dot edu
I see benefits not just to vidding collaboration but on collecting vids for fancons and other events, and for having WIP vids beta-ed at various stages, but I'm also interested in seeing how y'all use it.
Check it out!
cee_m:thatmadgirl (madgirl on DW) is working with a guy to develop a resource for video editors, animators, etc... They could really use your help. If you could spread this around we'd be REALLY grateful. They're looking to beta test this website and look for ways to make this a better resource. Pipeline was made by a PhD student studying animators, but we realized it might be a cool thing for vidders to use.
- It's a system to help organize tasks for when multiple people are working on a video.
- It could also be used for crowd sourcing (i.e., I need clips of this thing - everyone upload some for me!)
- It is a research project, but we won't bother anyone who doesn't want to be bothered, we just want people to use it.
- And we really want some vidders to use it because you're awesome.
There's a special instance of it JUST for vidders: http://pipeline.cc.gatech.edu/fandom/
Anyone can sign up. (And we apologize for the hassle if you're under 18, but if you do want to participate you're totally welcome.)
Anyone is welcome to start their own project or to contribute to the moustache vid that Casey already has in the works (or any others that might pop up).
If someone's trying to decide whether to use it and has questions, they can contact Casey at c.fiesler at gmail. Or if anyone starts using it and has questions/suggestions/etc., they can contact pipeline at cc dot gatech dot edu
I see benefits not just to vidding collaboration but on collecting vids for fancons and other events, and for having WIP vids beta-ed at various stages, but I'm also interested in seeing how y'all use it.
Check it out!
- Mon, 18:38: Mmmmaybe not. RT @DeathStarPR Sooo...you guys are okay with us blowing up your planet to save you from David Yates' #DoctorWho movie, right?
- Mon, 19:17: RT @HipsterDalek: MY SOCIAL EXPERIMENT INVOLVING REACTIONS TO VARIOUS FALSE DOCTOR WHO MOVIE RUMOURS IS A SUCCESS. DANCE, LEMMINGS, DANCE!
- Tue, 09:15: RT @OccupyWallSt: The 5k books of #thepeopleslibrary have been thrown in the trash. #ows
- Tue, 11:13: RT @The_MarySue: For When You're Fighting Tooth & Nail Hunger Games Nail Polish http://t.co/xKpdshCd Katniss did wear polish in the books...
- Mon, 18:38: Mmmmaybe not. RT @DeathStarPR Sooo...you guys are okay with us blowing up your planet to save you from David Yates' #DoctorWho movie, right?
- Mon, 19:17: RT @HipsterDalek: MY SOCIAL EXPERIMENT INVOLVING REACTIONS TO VARIOUS FALSE DOCTOR WHO MOVIE RUMOURS IS A SUCCESS. DANCE, LEMMINGS, DANCE!
- Tue, 09:15: RT @OccupyWallSt: The 5k books of #thepeopleslibrary have been thrown in the trash. #ows
- Tue, 11:13: RT @The_MarySue: For When You're Fighting Tooth & Nail Hunger Games Nail Polish http://t.co/xKpdshCd Katniss did wear polish in the books...
