Preaching to the choir, or why SOPA is bad for us.: seanan

Preaching to the choir, or why SOPA is bad for us.

A good chunk of the internet is blacked out today to protest SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP). If you have somehow managed to miss this, you must not visit any news or geek-culture blogs, read very many web comics, use Google or the Firefox homepage, or access Wikipedia. (Also, if you have somehow managed to miss this because you don't use the internet for any of the things I've cited above, I am a little bit afraid of you. What do you use the internet for? How did you even find this page? Are you a robot?)

How has the blackout impacted me? This is my morning routine:

1. Get up, get ready for work.
2. Internet! FOREVER! Okay, for about fifteen minutes. First up, web comics.
3. Second, toy collecting sites.
4. Thirdly, io9 and Television Without Pity.
5. Wikipedia, to both check facts about things I'm writing (do parrots eat meat?) and to confirm which shows I follow will have new episodes tonight (for some reason I trust Wikipedia more than I trust the TV Guide site).

This is my morning routine after SOPA:

1. Get up, get ready for work. Because everything else is blocked, removed, or under attack.

This is a broad-strokes "protection of copyright" that actually goes so far above and beyond the call of duty that it's like getting a pack of trained attack basilisks to keep those damn kids off your lawn. Basilisk crap is going to wind up getting everywhere, but who cares? No more kids on the lawn!

Now, I am a creator of things, and I appreciate and enjoy making money off of them. It enables me to do silly little things like keeping the power on and feeding the cats. I appreciate and enjoy it even more when people don't steal from me. But you know what doesn't steal from me? Book reviews. But SOPA could make it a crime to post book covers or quote inside text, something my favorite book reviewers often do. Hell, SOPA could make it a crime for me to maintain my own website, since I use art that is technically under copyright to either my publishers or the original cover artists, and if someone wanted to be a real dick, they could report me for posting pieces of my own books.

You know what else doesn't steal from me? Fanfic. The legal arguments about fanfic and fan art are huge and complicated and a matter for another day, but I can honestly say that I have received email from people saying "I encountered this piece of fic about your work and so I read the originals." I haven't received email saying "I encountered this piece of fic about your work and it was so bad that now I am stealing all your shit forever." Whatever impact fan works may have on my sales, and whatever the legality behind transformative fan work, it isn't stealing from me. It isn't internet piracy. But under SOPA, you could totally rat out fanfic archives and most of DeviantArt for violating copyrights, and watch the pretty, pretty fires as they burned.

Piracy pisses me off. I don't feel that I have wasted my time when I got upset about piracy and copyright. But there is such a huge difference between "I will now protect you from piracy" and what these bills will do that isn't even funny. Don't believe me? I mean, why should you? I am, after all, not a lawyer or anything like that. But I do have access to the internet, and to the smart people it currently contains, the ones I am allowed to communicate with freely and without fear of being slapped for violating a law that seems a bit too broadly written.

John Murphy would like to talk to you about SOPA. Better yet, he does it very intelligently and coherently, with good, clean information.

Still not convinced? The folks at reddit have actually dissected the text of SOPA, and point out some terrifying potential abuses. If you want to get your legal language on, this is the place to go.

And the ever-fabulous and profane Chuck Wendig has also pointed out some of the major issues with these anti-piracy measures. Like me, he's approaching it from a writer's perspective. He just says "fuck" more.

You know what? Fuck SOPA. Fuck PIPA. Fuck the idiots who think that they can control the internet. And fuck them twice for forcing today's internet blackout, because I still don't know whether parrots eat meat.

Fuckers.

briargrey

January 18 2012, 20:39:27 UTC 5 years ago

New comment

Well said! I have contacted my congressman and both senators today in support of the blackout, and while I'm not a huge facebook fan, I do have one and use it, so I posted on there too so people would remember. Thanks for the great links on it as well.

Oh, and parrots do eat meat, btw. My macaws effing love chicken (cooked). No avocado or chocolate though (no alcohol or caffeinated beverages either -- which is sad, because my blue and gold macaw is hilarious and awkward WITHOUT booze. A tipsy Kayleigh would be pretty funny).

yes, yes, I know -- rhetorical, point-making statement, but hey!

seanan_mcguire

January 18 2012, 20:43:09 UTC 5 years ago

No, actually, I really need/want to know. There's also a parrot in New Zealand that is apparently a primary meat eater, the Kea. I am Very Pleased by this fact.

tikiera

January 18 2012, 20:50:18 UTC 5 years ago

Parrots will eat cooked birds with an joyous abandon that makes one go 'that there is a happy cannibal'.

aliciaaudrey

January 18 2012, 20:54:02 UTC 5 years ago

I used to game with a guy who's lovebird used to sit on the middle of the table and eat fried chicken. Like, with breading ripping action! and happy squaking! It also really, really wanted to drink Mountain Dew.

It basically thought it was its owner, who was eating fried chicken and drinking Mountain Dew on most occasions I saw him. Except he didn't squawk.

January 18 2012, 20:58:13 UTC 5 years ago

The parrot in the book Emergence eats chicken, and I thought it was made up until my cousin got an African Grey.

I never ate poultry around that bird as it could easily take off one of my fingers and it wanted to share. For definitions of the world 'share' that indicate the parrot got all the poultry and I got to keep my fingers. If I was fast enough.

January 18 2012, 20:59:41 UTC 5 years ago

That sounds like a parrot!

Also I love Emergence so much. How did I forget about Terry and the chicken?

January 18 2012, 21:02:52 UTC 5 years ago

There is a sequel. It was published in a magazine as a seriel. I did not know until it was too late, but I am hoping it will be an ebook someday (soon). Or a book. Would pay trade paperback prices for another Candy/Terry adventure.

gorgeousgary

5 years ago

thedragonweaver

lysystratae

January 18 2012, 21:54:50 UTC 5 years ago

Hell, even little parakeets will... and they're scary about it. We put a couple chicken leg bones with some meat on them in a cage of 8 parakeets; the next day, not only were the bones picked clean, the little buggers had managed to crack them open and eat all the marrow!

January 18 2012, 20:55:43 UTC 5 years ago

Keas are AWESOME. I mean totally awesome. The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle has an exhibit with some, and I can watch them for hours. They're better than my birds because when they get too loud, I can leave... ;)

I know for sure that macaws, african greys, amazons, and most (if not all) parrots eat meat or at least can. I own 2 macaws, as I said, and let me tell you, they go batshit for it. It's very exciting for them to get some meat, practically orgasmic. Their eyes pin in excitement, they make happy little sub-vocalizations, and they rip into it with wild abandon. [They do the same for grapes. One of mine actually peels the grape with his beak. The other one punctures the skin and then tongues the flesh to suck out the juices.]

If you're writing zombie parrots, I love you more, btw. Just saying.

Watch videos on how the ones with tails as long as their bodies walk/run (macaws are a great example) -- it is very velociraptor like, but if the macaw is goofy (like my blue and gold), they look like the dorky velociraptor that is maybe serving as a distraction/bait while the others dart out and attack the hapless victim. I could see a zombie parrot pack....

January 18 2012, 21:01:37 UTC 5 years ago

Not zombie parrots, exactly. I need smaller forms of griffin, and I'm thinking a macaw/genet cross. (With a Kea/Thylacine cross for the marsupial form.)

robling_t

January 18 2012, 21:21:02 UTC 5 years ago

(With a Kea/Thylacine cross for the marsupial form.)

...Have we told you enough lately how much we love you? :)

January 18 2012, 21:31:31 UTC 5 years ago

Hee!

paksenarrion2

January 18 2012, 21:54:10 UTC 5 years ago

I think daily would be good to tell Seanan how much we love her.

January 18 2012, 23:41:05 UTC 5 years ago

ashen_key

January 18 2012, 21:56:29 UTC 5 years ago

(With a Kea/Thylacine cross for the marsupial form.)

...*ALL THE SHINY EYES*

anna_en_route

January 18 2012, 22:06:49 UTC 5 years ago

Kea article that might be helpful
http://www.newzealandatoz.com/index.php?pageid=163

"They embrace each day with curiosity, mischief, and the desire to eat,"

and

"She figured out how to break open the lock to her cage. One night she got loose and entered the keeper's quarters and the kitchen. She ate everything edible, totally destroyed a down sleeping bag, and carried coffee mugs to the edge of the counter and dropped them to the floor, reducing the mugs to a pile of pottery shards. Another night she escaped and methodically opened 20 other cages containing dozens of other species of birds that were part of special breeding programs. In the morning, when we came to work, we couldn't believe our eyes. Most of the birds were gleefully zooming around in areas that had been taboo. Lucy played it innocent. She and her mate had gone back to their cage and shut the door behind them, but the telltale broken lock gave away who was behind the breakout."

Coolest (and possibly scariest) griffins ever...

archangelbeth

January 19 2012, 00:15:25 UTC 5 years ago

Mental note: never get anything stronger than a parakeet.

ladyphoenixia

January 19 2012, 00:21:03 UTC 5 years ago

Keas are my favourite bird, they're so intelligent, and I adore thylacines (I so badly wish we hadn't made them extinct :(). This sounds like an amazing cross.

Although... thinking that griffin's are usually based on eagles, have you heard of the Haast's Eagle? It's an extinct NZ bird (lost a few centuries ago) that was the largest eagle ever existed anywhere in the world, with a diet of moas (also extinct, somewhat like emus/ostriches). That could make a good cross with a thylacine as well...

As a Kiwi/Aussie, I love seeing my species make it into books. It's surprisingly rare we get featured, even when written by Aussies... I was looking for urban fantasy set in Australia and am not having much luck. :(

dragonsally

January 19 2012, 00:59:36 UTC 5 years ago

as a fellow Aussie - I totally agree. and a hint - look at Twelfth Planet Press for good urban fantasy ideas set here. In fatc - i have lots of suggestiong for you for Aussie urban fantasty/fantasy if you'd like them.

January 19 2012, 01:08:47 UTC 5 years ago

If you have recs I'd appreciate it, because I haven't been having much luck.

I did notice a couple that were more paranormal romance, which isn't really my thing, and I love my australian authors (like Fiona Mcintosh and Juliet Marillier and John Marsden and Victor Kelleher), but Taronga is the only really awesome fantasy/scifi book set in Sydney I know - If you don't want to clutter Seanan's lj, my email address is little_phoenixia@yahoo.com.au

January 19 2012, 03:14:48 UTC 5 years ago

Twelfth Planet is BRILLIANT, and the book Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts is like to die for. One of the most amazing things I've read in a year. Australian authors, Australian settings.

Also, check out Trent Jamison's Death Works trilogy, from Orbit.

There's going to be an InCryptid book set in Melbourne, but that's not for a little bit yet, I'm afraid. (Book four, assuming the series does well enough to get that far.)

yellowblackhaze

January 19 2012, 21:23:41 UTC 5 years ago

The forest in Tasmania is so dense in the Franklin River area that there could be entirely unknown species living in it and we'd never know. Good place for a cryptid to hide out, come to think of it.

fluffworld

January 19 2012, 05:19:23 UTC 5 years ago

Keas are awesome.

Apparently they are omnivorous but were pretty much vegetarian until sheep arrived with settlers from the UK, and then they worked out they could swoop down and rake off some fat off the ruff of the sheep's neck and keep flying. And then farmers started shooting them and now they are endangered but they are UTTERLY AWESOME.

The two I met both like to play hide and seek (and shriek in disapproval when you leave them) and are fascinated by red things. One of them kept trying to disembowel my red handbag.

David Attenborough's kea video is brilliant - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twg4Yg4gFoo

January 19 2012, 05:30:06 UTC 5 years ago

Sources for that sheep allegation (which is me passing on what I remember hearing at the place where the keas were, so not saying it is completely accurate)

http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/theme.aspx?irn=1008
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/kea.html

I want a kea SO much, but keeping one entertained enough not to trash your house would be near impossible.

biomekanic

January 18 2012, 21:38:41 UTC 5 years ago

My mom's Quaker Parakeet loved steak, and occasionally bits of my finger.

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Preaching to the choir, or why SOPA is bad for us.

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