The push for Sopa is real. Check out this viral video speaking out against the end of a “free” internet.
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SOPA Cabana,” a new song and video by British rapper and activist Dan Bull, has quickly gone viral as opponents of the Stop Online Privacy Act continue petitioning against the controversial bill that could potentially create barriers to technological innovation or even “shut down the internet as we know it.”
The song is a collaboration between Dan Bull and dozens of supporters to whom he reached out over Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, TechDirt reported. Each of the 86 volunteers featured in the video holds up lyrics to the song which echo the general sentiment among SOPA protesters: that giving law enforcement officials the power to take down sites that may involve illegal content will compromise the freedom of the internet, the basic rights of internet users, and an artist’s ability to transform and re-imagine existing content.
The video is just one of many open protestests against the bill. Perhaps most prominent is a petition on the official white House site that called for 25,000 signatures against the bill. It reached its goal and surpassed the amount almost a month before it was required to.
Check out the full lyrics to Bull’s song below:
SOPA CABANA (A Warning From A Dystopian Future) by Dan Bull & Friends
I was born way back in 1986
I’m an old man now
Bu I remember how it used to be
Any now my grandchildren ask me
Grandad they say
Can you tell us what it was like
In the days of the Internet
You know, before SOPA
And I’d tell them
When was that? Hmm, let me see
Some time back in the early 21st century
I remember when the Internet was FREE
Behind my keyboard, people let me be
See, there used to be a thing called Freedom of Speech
We had freedom to teach each other, freedom to preach
Freedom to share culture and circulate ideas
Without the state trying to interfere, enter fear
We lost that freedom, not freedom as in free beer
But the freedom to be free from fear, even here
In the United Kingdom, the fact that I’m from England
Isn’t a matter that matters to our new masters and kings
I was a chap who could sing and distribute my music
And like minded citizens could listen to it
I couldn’t afford an orchestra, I was a poor performer
In more ways than one so I sought an alternate formula
Reinterpreted the media around me
Satirized the leaders’ lies on found beats
Talked shop on top of a sample of a rock band
At least we used to, until rap got banned
At the SOPA
SOPA Cabana
The place where SOPA
SOPA can ban ya
We’re At the SOPA
SOPA Cabana
The place where SOPA
SOPA can ban ya
You didn’t have to act twisted to get your ass blacklisted
Just annoy a big business and get fisted
They had a vested interest in Congress
If one messed with them, then there’d be one less
Our representatives never represented shit
So the internet was history, this was the end of it
I remember it like it was yesterday
I guess that day, I was too lazy to investigate
The escapades of another state’s government
Now I’m left to pay because the covenant
That they signed that day and ratified in law
Zipped our mouths up and took away our appetite for more!
I can’t do much now about the way it is
But if I could go back and change things I’d say this
Truth is beauty
And if you disagree with my views
Then you can sue me
In the meantime I’ll keep using YouTube
Even if it means that I need to find a new medium
IRC, Darknets, so digital’s down now?
I’ll use pigeons and smoke signals
