Hipster Jordan's Garbage Emporium

By now, you are probably sick and tired of every “nerd” with a blog bitching about the Stop Online Piracy Act. Because it “threatens their jobs”, but as a man of both sides of the media, that line has been said by both parties – for and against this act.

The offline-media companies (CBS, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, Etc.) are complaining that these ‘threaten their jobs’ because they feel that you, the consumer, won’t bother going to see these movies in theaters, buying these video games, or watching the shows with commercials, because you’re too busy downloading them on The Pirate Bay. Nobody wants to even shell out the 99¢ on iTunes to pick up the track, when they can easily download it off MediaFire or any other P2P service for free.

The online-media companies (YouTube Partners, Game Journalists, You) are complaining that these too ‘threaten their jobs’ because this gives companies power to take down your websites for “copyright infringement’ and by abusing their power, they can get rid of “reviewers” who are just “having fun”. If the “SOPA” gets passed, everything you like about the internet will be destroyed. Remember when people just used “fair use” as a crutch instead of blaming people for their actions?

Now here is where I stand….

If SOPA Get’s Passed…

• No more “Abridged Series” on the internet.
• No more “Annoying Reviewers with Clothing” on the internet.
• Let’s plays might be dead.
• Fanriffs might be dead.
• AMVs are guaranteed to get the axe.
• Game Journalism might be “eliminated”.

Which I think is a pretty great world to be in. Almost everything I hate about the internet will be gone in a puff of dust. But I call bullshit on that “Game Journalism” thing, a real game journalist would actually work WITH the game studios, distributors, and publishers to get information, and write about it. Instead of writing about rumors and “rants” about the sad state of the Game Industry, it will be a giant hype machine, which is what it has always been.

Websites like Google and Wikipedia are against the bill, simply because of the “censorship” aspect that it will provide, and that’s where I’ll agree. I don’t want any company or government to tell me what I can or can not write about or make in a video. If it happens, I feel that the creativity of the internet will be eliminated, instead of “Nyah Cat” you get “Nabisco™ Presents The Pop Tart™ Cat™ with a soundtrack by Coldplay™”, “Annoying Orange” will become “Annoying Florida Orange” and “Epic Meal Time” will become “TGI Friday’s™ Presents Let’s Consume McDonald’s™, Wendy’s™, Hershey’s™ chocolate drenched in Jack Daniels™ sauce wrapped in Oscar Mayer™ Bacon and deepfried in Crisco™”

But I’m more of a realist, if the bill gets passed, I doubt these companies will “take down” your precious little websites. If anything this will just give them the right to take down torrent websites like The Pirate Bay. The people who tend to be upset about this are people who were screwed-over when Viacom took down so many videos on YouTube, probably including their own. But maybe it’s great to have the publicity on the internet as opposed to forced publicity through use of “hashtags” during your show.

These hashtags are worthless in the long run. Even if you were trending on Twitter for several minutes, it doesn’t raise nearly the same awareness as a loyal fan of the show, taking time out to create something to praise it. Granted, some people are the opposite. They want to scathe the shit out of movies, to increase their ego, and not give a fuck about their review in general. Don’t dismiss these people, they are still promoting your stuff. Even if they are “The Media Psycho with The Cashmere Scarf”.

I know these media outlets are probably using YouTube to find “that one scene from a movie” or try and find that one song they forgot about that has the lyrics. The internet has been around for so long it’s developed it’s own identity, and one of those identies is using copyrighted material and remixing it to make things better/worse , such as You’re The Man Now, Dog! One frame from “The Animaniacs” isn’t going to ruin the sales of their DVDs.

What the companies should do is what everyone else does on the internet – compete for your attention. NBCUniversal made a brilliant move with the concept of “Hulu”, offer viewers the chance to watch last night’s television FOR FREE, all they have to do is suffer through a few commercials here and there. For an additional fee, you can get access to complete seasons of television shows as well as access to television shows not available anywhere else. ABC and FOX as well as their cable affiliates were on board with this idea, and that’s how you are able to watch Dancing with the Stars, X-Factor, and The Simpsons all on one website.

Here’s another idea – offer up movies that are released opening day online. This website will grant people the chance to watch feature length movies out in theaters right now. Charge them by the hour, the day, the week, per movie, whatever. Maybe even have an “Plus Membership” where they can watch movies that are two or three weeks old, or make it available to put on their Roku Boxes and Smartphones. The only problem will be the movie theaters like AMC which will have problems fighting against watching Theater Movies right now. But it sure beats a shaky camcorder recording of the movie, any day.