Why our government shouldn't pass SOPA

For thousands of years, nearly every human culture created music. These songs belonged to their village. The villagers passed these songs down from generation to generation, lest they sink into obscurity. These songs immortalized then-current events, histories, hopes for the future, and collective beliefs shared throughout the civilization. They later provided historians and anthropologists with a treasure chest such information.

Eventually, a wonderful series of inventions permitted humans to record their music, thus better insuring its survival. We then created radio stations, allowing people all over the world to express their emotions and ideologies through music that could long outlive its creators. Listeners learned to record these songs onto “mixed tapes,” and share them with friends. It has provided humanity with magnificent opportunities for creative exchanges.

The trouble came when music-makers grew too busy making music to bother with making sure anyone heard it. Singers and songwriters needed name recognition, but how could they obtain it? Enter the record companies.

The agreements between music-makers and record labels proved simple. The record companies would “own” the music in exchange for playing their clients’ music on the radio and distributing copies of said music. Listeners would pay for these copies, and the labels would keep almost all of this profit for themselves. Despite this pimp-prostitute relationship, the label companies did get name recognition for their clients, recognition that until recently, music-makers couldn’t obtain any other reasonable way.

The labels made lots of money. The bands sometimes made money (via concerts and merchandise), but the latter also enjoyed the thrill of knowing they had listeners. Now, record labels have decided that too many people are listening to their music for free. Now, the labels are trying to pass bills such as SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act. This bill, if passed, will give our government the ability to shut down any website, in its entirety, if it plays even a single note of “unpaid for music.” This means that if you make a home video and post it on Youtube, and there’s music playing, even if only in the background, the government will have to threaten to—and possibly carry out this threat—shut down Youtube. This actually cost the music-makers an opportunity for recognition and for being heard—the exact services for which they surrender their rights to the label companies.

This is absurd for a variety of reasons. I’ll tackle just a few.

First off, no one making these home videos can afford to pay royalties. Therefore, the labels aren’t actually losing anything by allowing these petty infringements upon their copyrights.

Secondly, the world looks down upon Americans for many reasons. Our creativity is not one of those reasons. People all over the world—our “enemies” included—love our music and films. In countries such as Afghanistan, people literally risked their lives to watch the banned, American movie Titanic. We mustn’t erect anything that obstructs our abilities to create, certainly not for the sake of appeasing corporate greed.

Here’s the third problem. Online sources of creative output such as Youtube have provided people with opportunities to break through the label’s barriers. You see, without such channels as Youtube, a potential music-maker must sign up with a label or face little chance of being heard. Singers such as Justin Bieber received their start by making home videos on Youtube. So did the new lead singer for the legendary rock group, Journey. Their new singer recorded himself singing along to one of Journey’s songs. That landed him his new career.

More than any other reason, we should reject SOPA because it holds the potential to shut down every online. Prior to these online programs, misbehaving politicians could get away with far more than they can today. When Mitt Romney made one promise to one state during his ongoing, presidential run, only to turn around and make the opposite promise to another state, online sources such as Youtube broadcasted both of his speeches, side-by-side, for the entire world to witness. If SOPA passes, that can’t happen, because the footage from those speeches didn’t belong to the people who broadcasted them. When Bill O’Reilly claims to have never made a statement, and someone can dig up footage of him having made that exact statement, you can bet that footage will end up on Youtube—but not if SOPA passes.

By passing SOPA, we threaten our creative outputs. We threaten avenues for expressing new ideas. We lose a powerful tool in keeping politicians (and those in their pocket) honest, or at least exposing them when they’re not.

The claim that SOPA protects musicians is irrational, as almost any musician, who is not a member of Metallica, will tell you. Musicians don’t make their money off royalties, and most musicians just what their music heard. As the internet lessens every entertainer’s need of a record labels, Hollywood producers, or publishing company, these companies get scared. SOPA is a means for them to maintain their grip over their audience. The only reason our government is considering SOPA is because 1) the labels are paying them to care, and 2) crooked politicians don’t want to get caught lying, and this proves difficult in a world where everyone with a cell phone (which is everyone) also has a video camera.

George Orwell wrote of a horrifying world where Big Brother (the government) watches everything you do, searching for your every infraction of the rules. While 1984 proves a great read, it also proves a backwards prophecy. We are Big Brother, and we’re now able to watch the government. Unsurprisingly, our government isn’t too happy about this. Why do you suppose the Chinese government so strongly regulates their internet?

In the end, what’s the worst that happens by not passing SOPA? That we might enjoy music without the labels receiving their cut? A cut they never would have received anyways? If these record companies need to pass laws to prevent recognition and audiences for music-makers, then why do those music-makers still need them? The labels’ very fear of losing control over their markets speaks volumes of the industry’s vanishing need to work with them at all, and if you really consider the aim of music, movies, and other art forms, that’s not a bad thing at all.

the staples

            First, I would like to apologize to my readers (both of you) for my having taken so long to write a new blog. Ninety-nine percent of my brain cells (marinated in cheap vodka and misbeliefs) believe that you are a vast readership starving for my every word, thus the apology). The other one percent of my cranial-enclosed neurons just rolls its little, bloodshot eyes with embarrassment for its deluded brethren.

            I’ve wanted to return here with several lengthy essays regarding today’s political scene. Such a scene has provided a wide-reaching garden of material not just fresh for the picking but threatening to wither (at least in my mind’s eye) on the vines if I do not soon tackle its bounty. However, I’ve recently read the fantastic about writing, called Bird by bird. Anne Lamott wrote it. I found her book enchanting. If America and Lamott go to war, she can count on my loyalty. Seriously, it’s a wonderful read, overflowing with charming and candid humor, and it has surfaced within me a desire to write something humorous, something that pokes fun at the writing experience. So (with any luck) I have.

            I’ve decided to write about the staples of every writer’s workshop that I’ve ever attended. You see, there is this reoccurring cast of characters always attending them. I’ll list them in order of their frequency, starting with the most frequent and ending with the most sporadic.

            First off, in every writer’s workshop—may it be short story, “full-length” fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or even (actually, especially) scriptwriting—there is the character that I have dubbed Comic Book Guy, honoring him (and it is almost always a him) after the character from, The Simpsons. I suspect that this character even attends workshops for technical writing, although this remains a suspicion I shall confirm. Comic Book Guy hates everything that has ever seen success. If Comic Book Guy attends a fiction-writing seminar, he thinks Dan Brown is an untalented hack. If Comic Book Guy is at a script-writing-for-movies seminar, he wants to lead a Two Minutes Hate against whichever movie has earned the most money that year. In today’s case, this is Avatar, which he will incorrectly label a rip-off of Pocahontas. In fact, you know what? I’m going to take a moment to address this spreading misconception right now. We’ll return to Comic Book Guy afterwards.

            Avatar is a story about a marine who must decide if his loyalty belongs to the marines or the aliens with whom they are at war. This is not the subject of Pocahontas (the historical version or any of the countless Hollywood jobs). The Last Samurai is a story about a soldier who must decide if his loyalty belongs to the army that hired him or the samurais with whom they are at war. The Fast and the Furious is a story about an undercover cop who must decide if his loyalty belongs to the police department or the criminals with whom they are at war. Ditto with Point Break. This has never once been the logline of Pocahontas. Not if you truly think about it. However, so what if Avatar resembles past movies? Show me a movie that fails to resemble anything ever before filmed, and there’s a good chance that you’ve shown me a move that has nothing in common with the human experience. So calm down, Comic Book Guy (whose writing never seems to have a plot of any kind, innovative or timeworn).

The real fun begins when you have more than one Comic Book Guy in the same workshop, because they start playing this game where they take turns swooning over directors and writers of whom no one holds any familiarity. The person who has the biggest orgasm mentioning the most obscure director or novelist wins. They are often stuffing potato chips into their mouths while battling.

Another character that you will meet in a writer’s workshop is the Virgin. The male version of the Virgin subsists in creative nonfiction workshops, and writes and reads aloud what I might politely call “erotica.” These “stories” mimic every lame Dear Penthouse letter ever printed. They’re over the top, gratuitous in mechanical detail, less poetic than most television ads for fungicide, and reek of bullshit. The author will remind everyone about fifteen times every ten minutes that this is a “true story.” I imagine that this author couldn’t pick a vagina out of a police lineup.

There is a female version of the Virgin, but she differs from him so much that she merits a class all her own. I call these characters Ambers, after a girl I knew back in high school. The significant difference between Virgins and Ambers is that the Ambers aren’t full of the same sort of shit. Their “erotica” is true, though I suspect embellished. I suspect that most Ambers lost their virginities early on, and enjoyed a heavy dose of notoriety for it. Now, perhaps entire decades later, they labor to recapture their lost fame by retelling tales of their sexual adventures. It comes across as so desperate as to become pitiful.

Please understand that I’m not frowning upon sexual subject matter. Sex is a major factor of the human experience, and therefore holds a significant place in story, which is, essentially, the exploration of the human experience—our nature and condition—via allegories. However, writing a story straight out of your middle school locker room isn’t very creative—unless, of course, you are writing a story that takes place in a middle school locker room. Otherwise, it doesn’t belong in creative nonfiction, because, chances are, it is neither.

This post is already taking far longer to write, so I’ll mention one character more. Perhaps I’ll hit upon other characters in future posts. No promises.

The final character that I’ll mention is the Dreamer. The Dreamer materializes in nonfiction workshops and exists only to frustrate their professors. The Dreamer will write a story that makes less sense than Michele Bachmann on enough crystal meth to kill a horse, then ends the atrocity with “And then I awoke.” This proves annoying in fiction. In nonfiction, it proves criminal. The author will argue that she “really had this dream,” and that consequently the story is “true” because she acknowledged that she had only experienced a dream.

Don’t be the Dreamer. Be a Dreamer, just not this one. This one’s an asshole. Stories to the tune of “I was in a hot air balloon with a monkey, and then my father floated by and handed me a cupcake. And then the cupcake turned into a shoe for some damn reason. And then I was eating at Burger King. And then I wasn’t. And then a volcano detonated, but it was okay because I was made of metal. And then I flew to Mars and watched my grandmother jam with Def Leppard. Then I vomited fish, and my dead cat told me to invest in Enron and shotguns. Then I awoke and decided to write this all down and waste everyone’s time by reading it in a nonfiction class because I’m some kind of idiot.

<sigh>

When Mark's Store Closed

When Mark’s Store Went Out of Business

This is not so much the story of a single, ground-shaking epiphany so much as that of a nurtured understanding. The calamities I’ll mention are not so much my own as those that have affected those closest to me.

When I attended high school, I thought of myself as a capitalist. Capitalism just made sense to me. By offering people a financial reward, those people would become motivated to build a better machine or provide a better service. I believed in a world where anyone determined enough could work hard, start a business, and become successful. A terrible astonishment awaited me.

I saw too often evidence that the American method of capitalism creates the opposite of its desired effect. Rather than creating opportunities in which a person can start her or his own business, we live in a world where the mom-and-pops evaporate with lightning speed, swallowed by the mega-franchises against which they cannot hope to compete. One friend of mine, Mark, went through the crisis of bankruptcy when he opened a store that specialized in school supplies. He couldn’t hope to hold a candle against Wal-Mart, even though Mark’s store offered supplies that Wal-Mart didn’t. It’s a shame because not only did Mark lose his business, but so did those companies which created the unique, school supplies only small store’s such as Mark’s would have offered. When only a few stores control entire genres of goods, a fresh product must find its way onto the shelves of giants or face immediate extinction. This closes opportunities for manufacturers, consumers, and would-be entrepreneurs.

 We all recall the infuriation caused my Microsoft’s Windows Vista. It proved an inferior product that nobody wanted. Yet, if you bought a new PC, you were stuck with it, regardless of the fact that not a single consumer wanted it. How, in a supposedly capitalistic society, can the consumers find themselves stuck with a product they don’t want? How does an inferior product rise to the top in the first place? I remember my aggravation years ago while searching for a new laptop. Everywhere that my quest carried me, I discovered only laptops preinstalled with Vista. How can this be? I wondered. How can my only option be a product no one wants?

In our society, I’ve witnessed businesses improving their cash flow not by creating a better product or providing a superior service, but rather through contradictory means. Businesses make cheaper, less efficient products. Businesses pay their employees less or send their jobs overseas. By the “laws” of capitalism, this should prove impossible. If our money is our vote, these events couldn’t happen. But they do, and here’s why:

Our current version of capitalism isn’t run by consumers. Our version is run by corporations. When politicians can accept bribes, in all their euphuistic terms, the consumer has little power, little voice, and little chance of competition among the larger franchises. Under such a stacked deck, our money has no voice, not even a whisper.

Capitalism is a great idea. I wish we practiced it. It is impossible to guess at how many grand ideas have gone unheard because the little guy cannot get his feet off the ground. We may have missed out on the cure to cancer or a more fuel-efficient engine. Just look at the many innovations arriving from other countries—their technological dominance over us is no freak occurrence.

Too Much?

            Unless you’re living under a pile of rusty, abandoned Volkswagens, you probably know that the Supreme Court shot down Schwarzenegger’s attempt to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. Countless concerned parents have taken scenes taken from “random” video games that depict the sort of violent programming to which they hope that their children will never discover themselves exposed. You’ve probably seen some of these scenes, yourself, as these same concerned parents have pasted them all over television in their efforts to keep people from ever seeing them.

One of the most upsetting scenes is from the newest sequel to the video game franchise Mortal Kombat. In this particular scene, two men (ninjas or something) each grab either of a woman’s legs before literally ripping her apart, her internal organs spilling out in a rather ghastly fashion. Some people see such a scene and think “Too much.” I look at it and think “Too little.” Wait! Allow me to explain. I don’t think “Too little gore.” I think “Too little innovation. Too little creativity.” You see, while the movie industry insists on releasing the same mindless sequels summer after summer, the video game industry is doing pretty much the same thing. And who could blame them? People are willing to pay good money to replay the same experiences over and over again. Why should any entertainment industry risk failure via a fresh idea? So rather than do something different and interesting, Mortal Komat just adds more gore to their preexisting platform. Before you judge them too harshly for this, consider that the franchise has tried new ideas. They included go-kart racing in one sequel, chess in another, heck, at one point, they even tried a real storyline. The results? No one touched those games. In fact, those games became objects of ridicule. So now we have two ninjas or something ripping a woman in half, bloody organs everywhere. The result? It’s a bestseller.

            In the world of fighting-themed video games, the franchise that least resembles Mortal Komat is Dead or Alive. If Dead or Alive sets a bad example, that might be the lack of gore. The Dead or Alive series seems to suggest that violence has no consequences at all. So what makes this franchise so popular? Dead or Alive features beautiful women wearing very little. That does the trick. In fact, more than once, the franchise created a game in which these females don’t fight at all; they just bounce around while playing volleyball in their bikinis. Here’s the catch: When these girls are beating the snot out of each other, the game is rated +13, suggesting that parents should reconsider allowing a child under the age of thirteen to play the game. However, when these same girls are jumping around in swimsuits . . . the game is rated Mature, suggesting that the game is entirely inappropriate for a minor of any age to play. WTF? In the case of Dead or Alive, the same “Too little creativity” problem arises, much in the same way that it has for Mortal Komat. Where Komat just heaped on more torture and blood, Alive just gave its characters skimpier outfits and continued to increase the size of their breasts (they’re now each larger than their owner’s head).

            The rating system in Alive strongly suggests that violence is acceptable over sex. Actually, a lot in the gaming world suggests this. You may recall another popular gaming franchise called Grand Theft Auto. It’s a game where you can waltz into a police station and open fire with an assault rifle, or perch atop a tall building before randomly pushing ammunition through the skulls of strangers via a sniper rifle. While Auto continues to face assault from those same concerned parents that I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t until a woman in one sequel took her top off that the game’s manufacturers had to recall it from the shelves.

            In the sandbox-style games Morrowind and Fallout New Vegas, there are strippers and prostitutes, and you can murder them if you like. You can hack them apart with a sword, cleave their heads open with an ax (Morrowind), shoot them in the face with a sawed-off shotgun, or beat them to death with a lead pipe (Vegas). In Vegas, you can even eat their corpses. In both cases, you can loot their bodies, stripping them down to their underwear. You can’t take their underwear, though, because then they would be naked, and that would be offensive.

            “Experts” say that American children are growing more violent every day. They claim that our children seem angry about something. They point out that these same kids play a lot of violent video games. I’m not debating today whether or not violent video games turn children violent. What I am pointing out is that these games seem to suggest that violence is fine, while sex and all the activities and emotions attached to it are wrong. Should we seem so surprised when adolescents are told that their most basic instincts and desires are evil and should be suppressed? Wouldn’t such suppression result in anger? Hmmm.