@Skysonglark

ANNOUNCING: The SpiderForest Webcomic Collective is organizing a charity zine to benefit the starving people of Yemen. 

The zine is open to the international webcomic community. If you make a webcomic, you’re invited to participate! 

Theme: Draw your original characters (OCs) as kids having fun! Details and templates can be found at http://spiderforest.com/charityzine 

Art is due by March 15. 

The zine will be used as a thank you gift for donations during a charity drive April 1-April 15. Please share and spread the word!

Please read this if you want to make a sick boy happy. Lorenzo Snippe is a 9-year-old boy from the Netherlands who is very sick. In 2016 he was diagnosed with leukemia and in 2017 with x-ald. On the third (3) of February is his tenth (10) birthday, and it will probably be his last. Because he can’t get any visitors due to being so sick, his parents have asked people in this news article to send him a happy birthday postcard as soon as possible. 

If you’re able to, please send him a postcard wishing him a happy birthday and tell him where you’re from! If you can’t, please reblog this post to make sure it will reach as many people as possible! His address is: 

Prinses Wilhelminastraat 22 

7753 TM Dalerpeel 

The Netherlands 

He really loves animals, so it would be great if you could send a postcard with an animal on it or something like that! 

Lorenzo Snippe

Prinses Wilhelminastraat 22

7753 TM Dalerpeel

People look at you funny. You don’t mind. Most of the stories they whisper about you are true. The embellishments just make you sound more fearsome. You like that.

Though they make you sound clever. Really you were angry. Angry and scared. You knew it was going to happen. It happened to your brother, after all, and he was a gifted with a violin as you were with a cello. You haven’t picked up a cello in years.

People look at you funny. You don’t mind. Most of the stories they whisper about you are true. The embellishments just make you sound more fearsome. You like that.

Though they make you sound clever. Really you were angry. Angry and scared. You knew it was going to happen. It happened to your brother, after all, and he was a gifted with a violin as you were with a cello. You haven’t picked up a cello in years.

You may have heard about the efforts in Europe to reform copyright law. The debate has been ongoing in the European Parliament for months. If approved next week, these new regulations would require us to automatically filter and block content that you upload without meaningful consideration of your right to free expression. 

We respect the copyrights and trademarks of others, and we take all reports seriously to ensure that your creative expression is protected. We make this clear in our Community Guidelines. There’s already a legal framework that works and is fair: Today we take down posts and media that contain allegedly infringing content when we receive a valid DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown request. We also provide clear-cut ways for people to fight back if they believe their removed content was not a true violation. These instances are monitored and reported and live in our biannual transparency report. 

The suggestion to use automated filters for issues of copyright is short-sighted at best and harmful at worst. Automated filters are unable to determine whether a use should be considered “fair use” under the law and are unable to determine whether a use is authorized by a license agreement. They are unable to distinguish legitimate parody, satire, or even your own personal pictures that could be matched with similar photographs that have been protected by someone else. We don’t believe that technology should replace human judgment. Tumblr is and always has been a place for creative expression, and these new regulations would only make it harder for you to express yourself with the freedom and clarity you do so now. 

If Article 13 is approved, European People might be basically banned from uploading any fan content. 

You won’t get new fanfics from people in Europe.

You won’t get new gifs from people in Europe.

You won’t get new fanart from people in Europe.

Because they’ll be automatically filtered and blocked!

We might leave Tumblr and other fandom pages.

And if we’re getting all our content blocked? 

You might lose some of your favourite followers/mutuals.

You might not get to read the rest of that fic you’re dying to read - simply because the writer lives in the wrong country.

So do whatever you can to help us stop this.

Reblog this.

Article 13 is going into it’s final stages of voting. 

If this gets through, it will allow many, many companies to abuse and misuse this article to take down as many memes, fan works, and even other independent creators on sites like YouTube, Facebook, and other websites INCLUDING Tumblr. 

THE FAIR USE LAW AND SAFEHARBOR LAW WILL NO LONGER APPLY IN THE U.S OR IN OTHER COUNTRIES. 

IT HAS ALREADY PASSED IN SEVERAL OTHER COUNTRIES. 

WE CANNOT ALLOW THEM TO TAKE AWAY WHAT WE BUILT FOR THE INTERNET SO FAR. 

So here is what you need to do to drag this article down. 

1. Spread the word 

I can’t stress this enough. The more attention this gets the more people we can get to take this down. 

2. Make your own content 

Make your own content on the matter and make sure it is clear to others that Article 13 is bad for every internet user involved. 

3. If you live anywhere in Europe, contact your MEPs 

Ask them if they approve of the article and why. If they do approve of it, try to convince them in a clear, reasonable, and most sensible way possible that this law is BAD. 

The article itself is way to vague about what it’s conveying to its people. 

Saying that as long as the use of said internet memes or content is good as long as it’s in “good faith.” 

We cannot let some shoddy government tell us what we can and cannot post. 

FREE SPEECH IS A HUMAN RIGHT. NOT A PRIVILEGE. 

Here’s a video on Article 13 that Film Theory made on the matter. It will explain things better than I can. 

Read on at overgrowncomic.com [in the intended format]

It’s here - my honors project webcomic, Overgrown! It’s a short comic about a girl who gets trapped in a faery realm and has to complete three tasks to escape.  An exploration of webcomics and utilising html/css/javascript etc to enhance the storytelling and make it more interactive. It should take 5-10 minutes to read, works best on mobile (portrait) or medium desktop screen.

Also contains: queer characters (aro lesbian, wlw), friendship themes, faeries, pretty forests, and other good stuff

Note: all pages have a timer reset to send them back to the home page, and the external links on the about page are disabled because of graduate exhibition this is currently being displayed at (ends nov 17) 

Guys. Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed!!!!

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed!

Article 13 just got passed.

Article 13 just got passed.

I don’t know if I’ve said it enough. So…

ARTICLE 13 JUST GOT PASSED!!!!

I have been on tumblr all morning and haven’t seen one post about it yet! I don’t understand how!

ARTICLE 13 JUST GOT PASSED!!!!

It was a 438 to 226 fucking landslide vote too. (https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17849868/eu-internet-copyright-reform-article-11-13-approved)

They’re voting on it one last time in January 2019, but that’s barely any time to change anything!!!!

You still have time to call your MEPs so PLEASE!!! Do so.

If you’re outside of the EU, sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/axel-voss-save-the-internet-reject-article-13-and-11?recruiter=839558037&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition

If you don’t know what this means, it’s basically then end of how the internet currently is in Europe. Memes? Nope. Youtubers? Bye!

You’d need a license for everything!!!!

And my fellow Americans my be all like, well, what’s the big deal for us? It’s a Europe deal.

No, because the Youtubers there that you love so much? This effects them too! I’m freaking out because Jack, the person who helps my depression go away, may no longer be able to do what he does!

Guys, we need to stop this somehow. Please.

Call your MEPs. Sign petitions. Protest (Peacefully please. Don’t get hurt).

I’m sorry for tagging you guys if you don’t want to be or already know, I just want as many people to know as possible!

I can’t tag everyone, but if you see this, please reblog it. Spread the news. Sign the petition. Call your MEPs. Do what you can to help stop this from passing in January.

James Rhodes, a pianist, performed a Bach composition for his Youtube channel, but it didn’t stay up – Youtube’s Content ID system pulled it down and accused him of copyright infringement because Sony Music Global had claimed that they owned 47 seconds’ worth of his personal performance of a song whose composer has been dead for 300 years.

This is a glimpse of the near future. In one week, the European Parliament will vote on a proposal to force all online services to implement Content ID-style censorship, but not just for videos – for audio, text, stills, code, everything.

Just last week, German music professor Ulrich Kaiser posted his research on automated censorship of classical music, in which he found that it was nearly impossible to post anything by composers like Bartok, Schubert, Puccini and Wagner, because companies large and small have fraudulently laid claim to their whole catalogs.

Europeans have one week to contact their MEPs to head off this catastrophe.

Stop what you’re doing and contact two friends in the EU right now and send them to Save Your Internet – before it’s too late.

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/05/mozart-bach-sorta-mach.html

WE NEED TO STOP THIS!!

AND WE ONLY HAVE A FEW DAYS!!!  THE VOTE IS SET FOR 12 SEPT.!!

IF YOU LIVE IN EU CALL YOUR MP AND ASK THEM TO VOTE NO

AND YOU LIVE OUTSIDE EU PLZ SHARE SO AS MANY PPL AS POSSIBLE SEES THIS

I ONLY SAW A POST ABOUT IT TODAY , 7 SEPT.!!

WE NEED TO SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!!