As a committed blogger, I want to say few words on this war that started yesterday, few minutes past 9 pm local time. SOPA law is not effective yet, but they took down Megaupload and few other filesharing sites. Some may ask - how a law that applies to US only affects us? It does, and in a great deal. First of all, most of the hosting sites are based (or were based) in US. After being taken down, links are broken. Tinypic, ie., I used it to host lovely and dorky Kpop gifs I found on the net. They are all gone now. The one above is directly sent to Picassa (it does consumme the space).
Second - this is one step forward to make all the world abide by US law. Why me, an European woman, have to be affected by some country's national policy? Why US wants to turn the world into a fedaration under one dominating country?
Third, for us, as viewers of Asian stuff, this may be the harbinger of future changes. We are already affected. We may be slashed in our access even more.
Let me explain this basing on my own situation. I don't have TV. Even if I did, there is no a single service that would grant me an access to any Korean broadcast (and I'm talking about main three, don't dream of cable ones). Without streaming sites or download sites, I will be lost as a child in the mist. Without YouTube I will be left stranded and without any possibility to keep in touch with everything.
What about us, usual viewers, that have no money to buy every fucking single that is out, to buy every drama without prior watching it to check if we like it or not? We DO buy DVDs and CDs, but first we have to be sure we buy what we like. This is when downloads and streamings come in handy.
Furtermore - we make no profit out of it. We pay for our internet service, we pay for storage for dramas, music. We don't trade them, we keep those for ourselves. How this is a crime?
Last, I use hosting sites for my students. We have e-learning platform here that makes our lives, as teachers and professors, easier. I have database for my entire course on mediafire. And I will use the site for my upcoming course regardless. Bad thing is, e-learning platform is effective only with links, so first I need to upload the file I want to give to students, and then make a link. What files? Short articles, fragments of books, my own ppt presentations, short documentaries found on sites they have no access.
US wants the whole world to be ruled under one (read: theirs) law. They want to turn the world into North Korea, into some fascist entity where freedom of speech, freedom of thought is just a dream.
But the law, targeted in big online pirate companies, will hit those who already have less than little. As always.
