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Across the Internet, website big and small are shutting down today to protest SOPA – the Stop Online Piracy Act.
Renaissance Babes will be joining them – but instead of shutting down for just a day, RennBabes.com will be shutting up shop (in its present form, at least) for the foreseeable future as a result of the proposed bill.
Why? Because Renaissance Babes is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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| The lovely Liat let us use her beautiful photos |
I realize now that what I was doing was essentially stealing. When I raided Flickr, especially, I was taking other people's original content – which they'd shot and posted themselves – and using it here for my own purposes and profit.
It was, to a far smaller extent, exactly the behavior the poorly-considered SOPA bill was intended to curtail.
The reason SOPA exists is not to censor the Internet, but to help stop people stealing others creative content and profiting from redistributing it. It's a badly written bill and it has enormous potential to be misused to silence corporate competition – but the issue from which it stems is real and Renaissance Babes is the very epitome of it.
This isn't a decision I've reached overnight. In fact, my infrequency in posting is partly a result of the internal conflict I've have regarding the ethics of running this website in its current format. I even attempted to change my evil ways; by posting original pictures, with attitubution, which I'd previously aquired permission to use.
But that's difficult, and time consuming, and less rewarding and profitable than just stealing stuff from other people's websites and posting it here. Which is why I've got to stop.
Perhaps down the line, Rennbabes.com will be back in a format that delivers the content visitors want in a format that's honest and ethical to produce. But until then, I'm laying down tools and doing my bit to fight bills like SOPA – by no longer contributing to the piracy and theft that it is intended to curtail.
Friends, if you too want to stop the passage of SOPA, you should look first to yourselves before you look to your congressmen or women. You can make a start by not bittorrenting movies and music illegally. You can make a start by paying for software instead of copying it from your friend. You can make a start by creating original artwork and copy to post on your website and tumblr, instead of just stealing other people's.
We are as much to blame for the existence of SOPA as the record companies and movie studies. It's time we acknowledged that and acted appropriately.
Hope to see you again, my friends – under better circumstances.
Hail and well met!
The Squire
squire@rennbabes.com
