BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Fanart and fanfiction may become a felony...

**Posted by kittykat** August 26, 2013 1:45 pm

Unless we stop it.

There's talk of bringing back part of SOPA, which if made law will make streaming any kind of copyrighted content a felony. No matter where you live, this will affect you.

For us on here, it means:

Write a Sherlock/Johnlock fanfic = jail term
Create Sherlock/Johnlock fanart = jail term
Record yourself playing Sherlock music = jail term

This may seem extreme, but it's true. Everything we love about the internet will disappear and some of us could be locked up. This can't happen, so there are a lot of petitions out there to try and stop it. This won't be enough; people in the US have to get in touch with their Senators so that if it comes to them, they should reject it.

Here's one petition I found, a Google search will uncover more:

https://www.change.org/petitions/the-obama-administration-stop-sopa-2013

For more information, go here:

http://www.complex.com/tech/2013/08/sopa-felony-copyright-streaming

Stop this now!

**Posted by Russell** August 26, 2013 11:12 pm

A more "official" one, I think, here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-sopa-2013/LMzMVrQF They've almost hit goal!

Seriously, I was just facepalming with a sigh at hearing this stupid thing had come up again. Copyright is a good thing for creators, sure, but (and as much as I'm no expert to go on in detail about this), the extent to which corporations/lawmakers are trying to completely control the Internet with this (I mean, c'mon, locking down on the Internet?) is just ridiculous. Because this -would- broadly affect a large amount of the content people are used to having freedom with. Thank for bringing it up again!

**Posted by Michele** August 26, 2013 11:37 pm

That's just crazy!! People create fanfictions and fanart because they love a show and want to show that. It's a form of flattery! What damage does it really do? I can understand if they were against writing real life people fan fiction (like Benedict/Martin) but the characters should be open to everyone's interpretation.

**Posted by Ormond Sacker** October 13, 2013 2:41 pm

Any news on this one? I heard a lot about it, but then it just seemed to fade away.

Of course, with the US gov shutdown they can't pass it. Cloud, silver lining I suppose.

**Posted by kittykat** October 14, 2013 11:39 pm

Yeah, guess so...

**Posted by sj4iy** October 15, 2013 12:03 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

The US government isn't going to prosecute people for using copyrighted works. Even if it were to pass, it would be ruled unconstitutional as a violation of free speech. The burden of protecting the copyright will always fall upon the copyright owner. That's pretty much all she wrote on it.

Last edited by sj4iy (October 15, 2013 12:07 am)