We know what you’re saying. “How did this political garbage get mixed in with my fandom news? It’s sticky and I don’t like the way it tastes!” Well, Hypers, this is one of those few times when politics is actually stepping into the ring with fandom news to take it on for a few rounds. Frankly, if we don’t respond it might be possible for fandom news as we know it to completely change (and in a way that nobody wants).

Reminder: This article is FILLED with non-partisan political nonsense/garbage. We’re doing it to keep you, the reader, as informed as humanly possible. Remember, you’re not being forced to read this.

You may have noticed that nifty rectangle at the top of our website. We are taking a stand.

Let’s give you a brief rundown. We have, at the top of our page, a link to a Wikipedia page telling you all about it. If you would like to know more, please visit the Library Of Congress’s page concerning SOPA to read the text the same way American politicians are reading it.

Here are the basics: A bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA for short) was introduced last year by Representative Lamar Smith, and it has proceeded to scare the shit out of internet media moguls and bloggers (including our own Selina Wilken) worldwide. It grants the American goverment, for the first time in history, the power to demand that an ISP (an Internet Service Provider such as AT&T) remove access to a website so that it will not be viewable to American citizens.

As you can guess by the title, this would only happen if the website were to be hosting some kind of copy-written material. Do you know what counts as copy-written? Pretty much everything. It’s a bill that is meant to help stop internet piracy and keep intellectual property at the hands of its creator. From the text of the bill:

A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.

That’s the controversial bit. Right there. In case you missed it, it basically states (for the first time in American history) that the government will have the sanctioned right to command that an Internet Service Provider detach a site from its Internet Protocol address (or ISP) resulting in Americans being unable to view the website.

All of the fake notices and facebook profile pictures you’ve been seeing? That’s not what you’ll actually see. It will just be a big blank area on the internet where your favorite website used to be.

Now, what must a website do to stop from being taken down by the internet police? According to the bill, it’s as easy as not hosting copy-written content, but when push comes to shove, EVERYTHING is copy-written content.

All eleven of these new GLEE photos, the trailer for Wes Anderson’s new movie, and our very popular footage of the Dark Knight Rises prologue all falls into the category of copywritten material. Even this static picture of Snape used as the featured image in this article counts as copy-written material. Any (or all) of the stuff that we report on EVERY DAY is what the American government is currently taking steps to take down.

In some cases, we expect a certain amount of backlash from the studios. You may have noticed that every now and again, we inform you that content has been taken down at the request of a studio. As soon as we receive a notice from the studio, we take down whatever content they decide they don’t want released. In the case of trailers, released scenes, interviews and everything else that isn’t leaked, they rely on us to spread the news about their properties.

Without fan sites like us, it would be harder to reach the public and amp the (for lack of a better word) HYPE for their next big event. With a bill like SOPA in effect, all it would take would be one piece of copy-written material that the Attorney General had just decided one day was one leak too far.

Here are the legal definitions of the type of things that are considered punishable by “we’ve shut down your website.”

`(1) IN GENERAL- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed–
`(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
`(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, or by the public performance by means of digital transmission, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works, when the total retail value of the copies or phonorecords, or of the public performances, is more than $1,000; or
`(C) by the distribution or public performance of a work being prepared for commercial dissemination, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial dissemination.
`(2) EVIDENCE- For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction, distribution, or public performance of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement of a copyright.
`(3) DEFINITION- In this subsection, the term `work being prepared for commercial dissemination’ means–
`(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution or public performance–
`(i)(I) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and
`(II) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner; or
`(ii)(I) the copyright owner does not intend to offer copies of the work for commercial distribution but has a reasonable expectation of other forms of commercial dissemination of the work; and
`(II) the work has not been commercially disseminated to the public in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner;
`(B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution or public performance, the motion picture–
`(i)(I) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and
`(II) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility; or
`(ii) had not been commercially disseminated to the public in the United States by or with the authorization of the copyright owner more than 24 hours before the unauthorized distribution or public performance.’.

There’s governmental procedure to be sure. We would have to be notified, we would have to ignore warnings, and it would take a certain amount of time (we all know how speedy and efficient the government is) but it would eventually happen.

By all accounts and measures, SOPA is trying to seem harmless in a “nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide,” kind of way and they ensure government procedure, but the ideals expressed in the bill are what we find troublesome.

For the first time, the government is testing their viability as a police force of the internet. If they imply an ability to punish (by ordering the ISP to shut down access to the website) the online community, it will be a precedent and a scary one at that.

Before we go on, I must ask an unrelated (and yet very related) question. Who reading this has seen Pirate Radio (or alternatively, The Boat That Rocked)? Remember the part where the English government decided that they didn’t want Radio Rock on the air, so Radio Rock had to take to the seas and broadcast from international waters? When the radio-ship kept broadcasting, they put a choke on their advertisers. From the bill:

(D) INTERNET ADVERTISING SERVICES-
(i) REQUIRED ACTIONS- An Internet advertising service that contracts to provide advertising to or for the foreign infringing site, or portion thereof, that is subject to the order, or that knowingly serves advertising to or for such site or such portion thereof, shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order, designed to–
(I) prevent its service from providing advertisements to or relating to the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order or a portion of such site specified in the order;
(II) cease making available advertisements for the foreign infringing site or such portion thereof, or paid or sponsored search results, links, or other placements that provide access to such foreign infringing site or such portion thereof; and
(III) cease providing or receiving any compensation for advertising or related services to, from, or in connection with such foreign infringing site or such portion thereof.
(ii) NO DUTY TO MONITOR- An internet advertising service shall be considered to be in compliance with clause (i) if it takes action described in that clause with respect to accounts it has as of the date on which a copy of the order is served, or as of the date on which the order is amended under subsection

Sounds familiar to me. Anyway, the vote for the bill is coming up, and although it is already widely disapproved, it’s still scary to see something like this on the horizon.

Google and Wikipedia have staged blackouts in opposition to the bill, one of them even has a petition that you can sign if you like this website and millions more like it. Please notice that we are taking this subject with the obvious slant of “if something like this ever passes, you folks will be out of a website and we will be without jobs”, but it is one that we must take.