#sopa

This Isn’t About AI. This Is About Control.

The people pushing for harsher copyright laws aren’t your fellow fan creators. They’re mega-corporations and IP holders who have always hated:

Fanfiction

Fanart

Parody

Cosplay

Remix culture

Educational use

Commentary

Open tools

Archive communities

Now they’ve found the perfect bogeyman: AI.

And they’re weaponizing it to scare you into giving them exactly what they’ve wanted for years — full lockdown of everything they “own.”

What Happens If They Win?

Let’s be blunt. If these copyright maximalists succeed, here’s what the future looks like:

Artist alleys at cons? Gutted.

Selling unlicensed prints becomes legally risky. Organisers too afraid to allow it. You draw Spider-Man? You better lawyer up.

Professional cosplay? Treated as infringement.

Want to wear a detailed character costume and accept donations or sell photos? They’ll hit you for using their IP for monetary gain. That includes Etsy shops, OnlyFans cosplayers, even Ko-fi tips.

Crafts? Fan merch? Etsy? Deleted.

That handmade Pokémon amigurumi? That Sailor Moon plush? Gone. Takedowns are already happening under current rules — and they want stricter laws to make it even easier.

YouTube? Tumbleweeds.

No more analysis channels. No more video essays. No more gameplay footage. No more AMVs. No more transformative commentary or reviews. Only “official content” — curated by the rights-holders, monetized by them, scrubbed of critique.

Fanfic? Memes? Gone quiet.

AO3 is protected by U.S. safe harbour rules — for now. But if new laws force platforms to vet or license all content... Fanworks become a legal liability.

You think Big Mouse is going to license your Reylo fic?

“But I’m not making money!”

They don’t care. They want total control. Whether you profit or not doesn’t matter to them — what matters is that you’re using their property without permission.

That’s the world stricter copyright laws will build — a creative wasteland.

AI Is the Excuse — Not the Problem.

Do ethical concerns around AI exist? Of course. Do we need transparency and better standards? Absolutely. But that’s not what these proposed laws are about.

This is about corporations using fear to expand their power. To make it harder for anyone to remix, critique, transform, or build on culture — AI or human.

They want your support to stop AI. But they’ll use that support to destroy fandom.

We’ve Been Here Before — SOPA, PIPA, and the War on Fandom

Back in 2012, the U.S. government almost passed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). They claimed it would stop piracy and protect artists.

What it actually would’ve done was:

Let corporations and the government get court orders that could effectively cut off or block entire websites over alleged copyright violations.

Treat linking to accused sites as something that could get platforms punished or blocked.

Threaten user-generated platforms like AO3, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, fan wikis…

Put the burden of enforcement on users and sites — not the actual infringers

Fandoms, creators, and the entire internet rose up in protest. Sites blacked out. Petitions exploded. Politicians backtracked. And we stopped it.

But now they’re back — using AI as the Trojan horse.

If they couldn’t pass SOPA to fight piracy, they’ll repackage it as “protecting art from AI.” And if you cheer them on without reading the fine print, you’re handing them the weapon they failed to get ten years ago.

Don’t Let Them Do It.

“It starts with AI. It ends with fandom.”

Fight for transparency. Fight for creator rights. But don’t hand the hammer to the same companies who’ve been trying to smash your communities for decades.

They don’t want to save you. They want to own you.

Sources / Further Reading

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – overview Explains what SOPA was, how it worked, and why critics warned it could endanger user-generated platforms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

How SOPA/PIPA Threatened Free Speech & Safe Harbour – EFF Breakdown of how SOPA/PIPA would have enabled site blocking and harmed platforms that host user content. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

Fandom and Copyright Norms – Casey Fiesler Research on how fan creators operate in a legally grey area, relying on norms and tolerance rather than clear legal protection. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3635549

Cosplay and Copyright in Japan – Klemchuk LLP Explores how professional cosplay is being pulled into copyright/licensing, including proposals for fees to rights-holders. https://www.klemchuk.com/ideate/cosplay-in-japan-faces-new-copyright-law

Fan Merch & DMCA Takedowns – Etsy Story First-hand account of a fan crafter hit with a DMCA notice over handmade anime dolls, showing how fan merch is already targeted. https://blerdyotome.com/2020/05/13/now-this-is-a-story-all-about-how-i-got-hit-with-a-dmca-notice-from-funimation/