Blackout!

19th January 2011

I always love a good protest, particularly one I can take part in from the comfort of my own home.

Today, thousands of sites have taken part in a 'blackout' move of defiance against the SOPA (and PIPA) bills. Ironically enough, I've used one of these sites to provide definitions of both. (Even more ironically, my good friends in Brixton ended their day yesterday with an actual black out.. spooky.) Initially, I turned to Wikipedia for clarification of the death of a notorious Italian director (after reading this rather heart-warming Telegraph article), and found myself faced with a black screen and small, formal looking text. I thought to myself 'Finally! They've had enough of everyone ignoring their pleas for money at the tops of their pages.' Then I took note of the message they were imposing on me. At the same time, my good friend showed me this rather thought provoking press release from The Pirate Bay. Here is my favourite bit.

''The reason they are always complaining about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between each other, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existence in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.''

They go on to explain that Hollywood justifies their complaints by saying that they provide us consumer folk with 'culture'. This leads to one quite obvious question: If all Hollywood wants to provide is culture, then why stop the majority of the public from accessing these beneficial works of art? If movies as intelligent and mindblowing as Cowboys and Aliens or those deemed necessary in the name of 'art' (such as those mentioned in the Telegraph) are classed as 'culture', then please, please, I beg you, let them pass this law. The less I see of Keira Knightley and Richard 'silver-haired fox here to save hopeless woman again' Gere the better.