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Screw Entitlement

Not going dark. Duh.

Here's one. Maybe, just maybe, if in the last oh, almost two decades, people had decided that the following:

"I wasn't going to pay for it anyway"

"If you put it on the Internet, it's public domain."

"If you put it on the Internet, you expect it to get stolen, get over it."

"You can't expect me to pay for something without seeing if I actually want it first."

"If I like it, then I'll pay for it."

"If it bothers you, you should protect it better."

"I'm HELPING YOU! I have LOTS of friends, SOME of them MAY buy your OTHER work."

...were the shallow bullshit justifications for stealing other people's work they are, then the justifications for idiocy like SOPA/PIPA/et al would be far, far smaller. Maybe if the internet community that is so, so, very up in arms had viewed things like piracy as the fault of the pirate more than the victim, the need for such things would be smaller.

But no. We have facebook game stealing artwork, lying about licensing it, and when the artists are so rude as to have a problem with this, the players of the game blame the artists for being unreasonable.

We have Google wanting noted designers to do themes for Chrome for free, and telling them, (including people who have work on Target Gift Cards) that the "exposure" should be more than sufficient "payment".

We have people taking someone's art, Photoshopping the original copyright off of it, putting their own on, and then posting it with a comment about don't steal art, and are so very offended when they get the DMCA takedown.

So do I think SOPA/PIPA are good? No, don't be stupid, they're horrid bills. But do I think that it is solely the fault of RIAA/MPAA/et al? No. The people using the above excuses and justifications share just as much blame. If nothing else, they created reams of justification for lobbyists to use when pushing these bills in Congress.

The Internet's relentless victim-blaming and support of piracy handed "the enemy" a fully-loaded gun, aimed at their own skulls, all the while screaming "I DARE YOU TO PULL THE TRIGGER". Spare me the outrage until you're willing to change your behavior.

Categories: Politics

Posted by John C. Welch at 11:30 | Permalink

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Not going dark. Duh. \n\nHere's one. Maybe, just maybe, if in the last oh, almost two decades, people had decided that the following:\n\n\"I wasn't going to pay for it anyway\"\n\n\"If you put it on the Internet, it's public domain.\"\n\n\"If you put it on the Internet, you expect it to get stolen, get over it.\"\n\n\"You can't expect me to pay for something without seeing if I actually want it first.\"\n\n\"If I like it, then I'll pay for it.\"\n\n\"If it bothers you, you should protect it better.\"\n\n\"I'm HELPING YOU! I have LOTS of friends, SOME of them MAY buy your OTHER work.\"\n\n...were the shallow bullshit justifications for stealing other people's work they are, then the justifications for idiocy like SOPA/PIPA/et al would be far, far smaller. Maybe if the internet community that is so, so, very up in arms had viewed things like piracy as the fault of the pirate more than the victim, the need for such things would be smaller. \n\nBut no. We have facebook game stealing artwork, lying about licensing it, and when the artists are so rude as to have a problem with this, the players of the game blame the artists for being unreasonable.\n\nWe have Google wanting noted designers to do themes for Chrome for free, and telling them, (including people who have work on Target Gift Cards) that the \"exposure\" should be more than sufficient \"payment\". \n\nWe have people taking someone's art, Photoshopping the original copyright off of it, putting their own on, and then posting it with a comment about don't steal art, and are so very offended when they get the DMCA takedown.\n\nSo do I think SOPA/PIPA are good? No, don't be stupid, they're horrid bills. But do I think that it is solely the fault of RIAA/MPAA/et al? No. The people using the above excuses and justifications share just as much blame. If nothing else, they created reams of justification for lobbyists to use when pushing these bills in Congress. \n\nThe Internet's relentless victim-blaming and support of piracy handed \"the enemy\" a fully-loaded gun, aimed at their own skulls, all the while screaming \"I DARE YOU TO PULL THE TRIGGER\". Spare me the outrage until you're willing to change your behavior.