League of Legends Championship Series

I'm usually optimistic about my ability to change even something as broad as the culture and society we live in. It helps, of course, that I live in a time when I can watch that society change right before my eyes. Little changes, perhaps - maybe the concert features a purely computer-generated singer, instead of a live person, and still draws major attendance in cities across the country from the actual concert (yay simulcasting). Even if it's a little thing, it would have been unimaginable ten years ago.

Or, you know, maybe an online video game kicks off the start to a league that draws hundreds of thousands of viewers on its opening two days of matches.

The League of Legends Championship Series (or the LCS for short) is, perhaps, not that much of an innovation. These kinds of leagues have existed in Asia (particularly Korea) for years, to my understanding. It is most assuredly something new in the United States, if nothing else. And speaking as someone who (currently) lives in the United States, it is quite definitely exciting. (There's also a new European league, for people on that side of the Atlantic.)

I think it's certainly been the case that video games can have somewhat of a bad reputation outside gaming circles. Indeed, anything that takes place online or uses a computer can be negatively defined as "not real", as if something requires physical form to be counted as "real". I should probably back away from the philosophical minefield that I'm about to step into, but suffice to say that I don't think Miku is any less "real" for being a computer construct, to take one example.

And this kind of bias against online society as somehow less than face-to-face interaction is very much alive and well today, in case you were curious. "The online, social media stuff does not matter because it is behind a computer", you say...?

These people in the LCS are making a living off of video games. They are professional sports players, in a very real sense, although perhaps less well paid than some sports stars. We live in a world where the definition of the word "sports" is changing before our eyes - to accommodate this idea of "e-sports", the arrival of video games on a professional stage.

Don't tell me that it can't be done. It's being done as we speak.

(Oh, and in a development as critically important as any of the above, my favorite team kicked major butt, going 3-0 in the first week. Priorities!)

A Tribute to Aaron Swartz

This blog's Internet tag serves as a useful way of getting at everything I've ever written about online society. Shocking, I know, the tag serving its stated purpose! More importantly, in light of recent events, it is an excellent way of reading everything I've ever written about... well, what I have called "piracy" in the past, but what the subject of this post would probably not describe as such.

Yeah, I know, I'm a good three days late. Whenever it comes to writing about major events, this always seems to happen...

I digress. In case anyone wasn't already aware, Aaron Swartz committed suicide a few days ago, at 26 years old. I was only passingly familiar with his work and his ideas, despite the connection that I had to his family (one which I won't describe in detail, in keeping with my tradition of not discussing personal matters in this forum). Indeed, I don't feel informed enough even to provide a summary of his life; I would encourage people to follow the link to the Wired article for that.

Although, given some of the things I have found online in the wake of this tragic loss, I can safely say that I can add one more person to the list of people with whom I would love to meet and talk to in person... or rather, the subset of that list that is made up of the people for which that will never again be possible.

I am too late to discuss his ideas with him in person, but thanks to the Internet which he valued so highly, I have been able to read (some of) those ideas now. And more importantly, I've re-read the things that I've written - about SOPA when that was being considered, about Megaupload when that site was taken down, about the ways the American community watches anime.

I do believe that some of those ideas still stand. I believe that content creators should have the right to determine how their work is shared with others, whether that be posting to the Internet under a Creative Commons license or a DVD collection that costs a staggering three hundred and seventy dollars.

And yet, focusing on that (as I have done in the past) has caused me, in some major ways, to be guilty of missing the point to an almost staggering degree. Re-reading what I've written and what Aaron Swartz has argued for in the past has forced a rethinking of my own thoughts on these issues. Indeed, forced a rethinking on how I reacted to the "crime" which played a major role in this saga, Aaron's downloading of multiple different articles from JSTOR and his intention to make them widely available, although that reaction is one that I never discussed publicly.

To an extent, those reactions have been shaped by my concern over the way society functions now. My desire to play by the rules, and a personality that considers intentionally breaking the rules to be usually unjustifiable. This, then, was my failing: to discuss the issue as if the rules we play under today were inviolable. As if society cannot change. It is a failing that is all the more unbelievable considering the way I react to "society can't change" when the subject is misogyny. A failing that is frankly absurd considering that the rules in question, that led to federal prosecution for his actions, are ones that need to change.

Let this mea culpa, then, stand as my personal tribute to Aaron Swartz. If it were possible, I would beg his forgiveness, in that it had to come to this before I gave his ideas the attention they deserved... and I will work to ensure that I do not continue in the errors that have characterized my thinking on these issues.

My condolences go out to his family and friends, and I would encourage people to visit the memorial website that they have set up in his memory.

May you rest in peace, Aaron Swartz, knowing that your work will not go unfinished.

Internet Society

I am, perhaps, one of the few people of my generation to have never touched Reddit. And I do mean never. I've found my way there from the occasional link, but only in the context of another story, and I've not spent any time looking around Reddit, itself. Nor do I have an account there. So perhaps I'm not the best person to be commenting on this story, seeing how the vast majority of it took place on Reddit.

But, it is a story about someone's online identity. Or rather, it's a story connecting someone's online identity to someone's offline identity, attaching a real name and face to what was formerly nothing more than a line of text, a pseudonym. And given what this particular online persona (Reddit's Violentacrez) has been responsible for, there can be very little doubt that this particular revelation is intended in large part for its value as intimidation or punishment. That's what's known as "doxing" (a word I had not known until I read that article), and to Internet society, it is a severe crime.

It's not something I, personally, have worried too much about. By and large, I go by two pseudonyms on the Internet - older accounts as Counterpower, newer ones as Zankou. I don't go to any great lengths to hide connections between those names and my real one, or between those names and my appearance; if Gawker wanted to do an expose of me (highly unlikely at best!) the necessary research would probably take about ten minutes. I haven't (yet?) openly revealed my real name here on this blog, but that's really the only concession I've ever made to "hiding" my real identity.

By and large, that's because of one simple reason. It's because I try to conduct myself, in any public space, in a way that I would not be ashamed of, were it to become widely known. As far as my online persona is concerned, that mostly means this blog - when I post here, I think about what I'm posting, and why. More than that, I think about how it will be understood, how those whose opinions I respect would react to what I write. And whether or not I would like those reactions.

That doesn't mean I haven't made my mistakes. We all have. That's what apologies and changes in the way I act are for.

Nor does it mean that I don't do things that some people might find questionable. I don't talk about them online. Or, you know, at all. Mostly I examine myself (internally) and what I'm doing, comparing my actions to my principles and determining whether or not they're in conflict. Sometimes they are, at which point I've determined that I've made a mistake in the way that I act... and then, well, see above. (Or, more rarely, that I've made a mistake in formulating or holding a given principle.) Sometimes, I decide that they aren't, despite the disapproval of those whose opinions I would otherwise respect.

But you know... if the day ever comes when I am called to account in public, I'm not going to complain about how I should be allowed to carry on without censure. That isn't how society as a whole works. I am accountable to the people around me for the way I act, and as long as their responses are in and of themselves legal, they may react as they desire.

Apparently the rules change on the Internet. As the Daily Dot puts it, "At Web communities like Reddit, which thrive because users are free to say and do anything they want, doxing is a severe crime, both to users and the site’s staff." (Emphasis mine.)

I don't agree. As it happens, I think Reddit can thrive perfectly fine without its jailbait subreddits. I don't think that the freedom to do anything you want is an integral part of Internet society. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say this: if Reddit in specific or Internet society in general does actually rely on its users' ability to say whatever they want without being called to account for it, it should not exist.

Why I Didn't Attend PAX East

I imagine it should be apparent from my blog that I ended up going to Anime Boston a little over a month ago. Of course, there was another convention in Boston that same weekend, one that no small amount of my friends ended up going to. I was tempted, myself, to drop by PAX East, even if only to go talk to the Riot Games people about League of Legends. In the end, though, I ended up skipping PAX East this past April, and I don't regret that decision.

Part of that was simple apathy. I had a limited amount of time that weekend anyway, and it was easier for me to sit around the Hynes Convention Center at Anime Boston than it was to hike across Boston to the convention center in which PAX East was being held. Part of that was finances; it's not like I couldn't have spared the $35 to get in, but I just didn't have enough of a desire to get in to make spending the money worthwhile.

The largest part of it, though, was the fact that I am not really a fan of Penny Arcade, and never have been. Because I have never really bothered to read the comic, my knowledge of Penny Arcade is shaped by incidents like this one. Yes, I know, the dickwolves incident is almost two years ago now. Unfortunately for Penny Arcade, it's what I remember of their comic, and when friends of mine asked me if I was going to PAX East, it's what I thought of.

And perhaps I would be being a little unfair if it was an isolated incident, if you can even call an extended pattern of responses and arguments an "isolated incident" (you can't)... now what's this?

Sodapop minis had their Kickstarter shut down. You can still support their new game tentacle bento over on their site. girls.sodapopminiatures.com/content/fund-t…

— cwgabriel (@cwgabriel) May 16, 2012

For the record, yes, he has every right to support whatever he likes, even a game that takes a tongue-in-cheek, satirical look at a particularly problematic genre. Just as I have every right to condemn him, Penny Arcade, and PAX for it. In short, "but free speech!" will not fly here.

For the record, yes, liking problematic things doesn't make you a terrible person. Not automatically, anyway. The blog post at that link there is really the best breakdown (that I know of) of how not to become a terrible person when talking about problematic things, even ones you like. I certainly can't do any better.

Speaking personally, I am no stranger to hentai, although I usually shy away from tentacle porn and any depictions of rape or assault. I don't find seuxal assault to be arousing or interesting, and playing games that end up trivializing or glossing over it isn't something I really want to do. What hentai I do look at is usually in the form of visual novels, a particular type of computer game that I find to have engaging stories (that do include sex scenes) and characters who actually have their own feelings and desires, who don't exist solely for the pleasure of the (assumed male) protagonist or player.

That isn't to say they're not problematic, because they are. Some of the sex scenes depicted in those works are still highly questionable (whether by playing the "rape-as-plot-element" card, or otherwise by uncritically presenting sexual assault), and some elements of the stories are also problematic, or at least unrealistic. I'm not really prepared to go into the details here; a detailed analysis of the story of, say, Kanon, would probably be an entirely separate post. For the moment, I will leave it with this: that usually the stories and characters involved are interesting and engaging enough for me to find these things worthwhile, despite their very real problems.

Call it satire if you like - a game like the one he's promoting there doesn't actually say anything worthwhile about those problems, in my opinion. I don't think hentai should have to involve rape, and I think laughing at the prevalence of rape in hentai is counterproductive at best. I think it's possible to create games, whether card games like this one or computer games like my visual novels, that can be sexual or erotic and yet not involve sexual assault.

And the fact that the people who run Penny Arcade and PAX East don't seem to share my concerns is a problem. It is, in fact, a problem that has kept me away from PAX East this last spring, and will likely do so for many years to come. Condemn me for that decision if you will, but I have the ability to choose who and what I want to support. Until I believe that PAX East is more in line with the way I want the world to be, I won't be supporting them.

ETA: Shakesville linked to my post in their own coverage of this particular incident. I highly recommend going and checking out that post, because it's an excellent summary of the situation and collection of other posts on the matter.

Consequences for LulzSec

Hey look, consequences!

According to the FBI, the head of LulzSec, known online as Sabu, is really Hector Xavier Monsegur, a 28-year-old father of two from New York. And apparently, as a report from Fox News states, he's been informing on LulzSec since being caught last June.

The Fox News report itself is here. If you would prefer news from the New York Times, that is also available.

Personally, I very strongly disapprove of actions like those from LulzSec and Anonymous. I mean, seriously, hacking into PBS's website because a program that the network aired was overly negative to Wikileaks? Setting aside the fact that reasonable people will probably still be able to disagree over the value and effectiveness of Wikileaks (we'll come back to that in a bit), and setting aside even the actual content of the program itself, there are ways to make that kind of displeasure known that don't involve committing illegal acts. Especially if you have ties to the communications network that is Anonymous, or the site designed to make information publicly available like Wikileaks!

This, of course, ignores any of the other LulzSec-led hacking attempts during its short time in the public eye, such as those against Sony, Nintendo, or BioWare. I don't even see a point to any of those. Is there one? Am I just not paying enough attention?

What annoys me most are the legions of people that rush to the defense of these groups; there are some examples in the comments on the New York Times piece. There are two closely related main threads to focus on: the "what about the government and/or Wall Street's crimes" angle and the "these people are heroes" angle. (Usually, they're heroes because they expose the depredations of the government or of Wall Street.)

For the former, I will repeat the same damned line that no one seems to fully understand yet: the existence of greater crimes does not mean that lesser ones vanish. Saying "but this is worse!" merely redirects the conversation, and in no way answers the question that started it.

The question that started it, then - are they heroes? No. Not even slightly. Hackers such as LulzSec are at best vigilantes, doing whatever they damn well please in defense of whatever morality they can justify themselves with. And as it stands, carrying out such actions - anything from hacking a corporation's server to revealing classified information - is illegal, and rightly so. I tend to believe that there are things the government keeps secret for a reason, after all.

If you disagree? By all means, reveal the secrets, take whatever action you believe is necessary in defense of information that the public needs to know about, and let the rest of the world judge for themselves whether you were right or not. Frankly, all you're doing is replacing the government's judgement with your own, and hoping that the rest of us will agree with you rather than said government. Regardless of who comes out on top, though, such action is and will remain illegal, and part of making the decision to reveal such information anyway should be accepting that there will be consequences for that action.

In short, as one of my favorite authors said in regards to piracy (which is in many ways a similar phenomenon): own your choice. Right now, LulzSec's leaders are facing the consequences for the decisions they've made. Had they not been willing to accept that when they carried out their first hacking operation, they never should have started it in the first place.

New Ways to Watch Anime

You know what they say: once is a fluke, twice a coincidence, and three times makes a pattern. (I don't know if "they" actually say that, but screw it I'm saying it now.) Well, we are officially into the "coincidence" phase, with the new Black Rock Shooter anime streaming on Nico Nico Douga starting February 3rd in eight different languages.

I would really like to believe that this is evidence of people listening to... well, not me personally, but certainly the sentiments I expressed the last time this kind of news came out regarding Fate/zero. I really do feel like we're standing on the brink of a major change in the way the American anime community can function, and I really do think that making shows readily available like this could be the gateway to a much broader presence of anime fandom in the United States.

And I do think that this should herald a decline in fansub releases. Of course, the last time I talked about this regarding Fate/zero, I relegated that issue to a later post. Well, now that later post has in fact been written. It's hard to tell really if anyone's planning to create a fansub for the Black Rock Shooter anime, since obviously nothing can have been released yet and any searches will run headlong into the OVA, which is already out (and which isn't available in the U.S., to boot).

But what I didn't say for Fate/Zero, I will say for Black Rock Shooter: I don't believe there should be any fansubs of this anime distributed. We have access to the show already, without having to circumvent the creators' chosen methods of distribution. If we are to have any respect for the people that create excellent shows such as these, we simply can't ignore that.

Time will tell whether this will become a pattern. I for one sincerely hope that it does.

A Post-Megaupload World

Anyone else tried to access Megaupload recently?

I first realized it here (a new site called Geek Revolt), and quickly went to confirm here (Washington Post) and here (Los Angeles Times). The site's been taken down. Given that attempting to go there itself returns no response, I'm willing to bet that this particular takedown was the oldest and most effective form of computer disruption: physically pulling the plug. And given the indictment against them (thanks again to the Los Angeles Times), I'm willing to bet they're not going to be coming back anytime soon.

Let's be clear here: Megaupload was hosting and distributing large numbers of files without permission. I would not be surprised to learn that there were large numbers of files on there which were being distributed legally, but I would be even less surprised to learn that there was pirated media available on Megaupload, quite possibly in much larger amounts.

As a result, I really can't find it in me to get worked up about this one. If the charges laid out in the indictment are in fact true, then there is every reason to be taking the site down quite permanently, thank you very much. And Megaupload will absolutely have their day in court, with all of the due process that entails - trying to claim that they're somehow not getting that process is kind of absurd.

Connecting this to the debate over SOPA is, likewise, absurd. Irrespective of the timing of the action. If your problem is with the government's action in this case, your problem is with a large amount of existing law, already in the U.S. Code. If it's as problematic as SOPA, by all means bring that to everyone's attention. But this is one site being taken down for demonstrable violations of federal law. Had SOPA already existed, every site that ever posted a link to Megaupload would be potentially in the crosshairs. That's the difference.

I said in my post about SOPA on the day of the blackout that the battle against piracy is going to be a long and complicated one. And I'm willing to agree that it is to some extent futile, in that there will be a countermeasure to any anti-piracy measure enacted. Whether they manage to throw doubt on the government's case against them and are able to return, or whether another site takes up their mantle, there will be another Megaupload. Perhaps its successor will be more under the radar, or perhaps it will be actively ignored for a time. That will not change the facts that brought this particular indictment forward, and it will not stop the government from issuing its indictment against that successor, should the time ever come.

I oppose unreasonable methods of combating online piracy, a category into which SOPA and PIPA certainly fall. In the end, though, I do not oppose reasonable and effective means of combating piracy, whether economic or legal in nature. And I don't believe that the indictment and takedown of Megaupload can be considered truly unreasonable.

SOPA

Today, a large number of sites (most notably Wikipedia) are blacking out to protest legislation being considered in the U.S. Congress that would have a chilling effect on the Internet's ability to exist.

At first, I was ambivalent, I admit. This was before I understood what the Stop Online Piracy Act (and the Protect IP Act) would actually do, when I was still thinking about the (very real) problem of piracy online. As an anime fan, I'm well aware of the extent of piracy in that community, to the point that piracy has transcended "unpleasant but necessary" to become standard practice. And I've written before about the ways in which that might change and the ways in which it should.

SOPA is not one of those solutions, to anime piracy or to anything else. What it is, is a free pass to major corporations and to the Attorney General's office to demand that all websites censor anything that could infringe on copyright. (There's a more detailed and probably more accurate primer here.) What's more, entire websites can be targeted for blacklisting. Under the terms of this legislation, either of the two videos I posted early on could get my entire blog taken down.

In short, the battle against piracy is going to be a long and complicated one. Pulling out a legal hammer and smashing everything flat will not only cause excessive collateral damage, but will also fail to achieve the stated goals. For that reason, I oppose the proposed legislation in Congress, both SOPA and PIPA. And while I am not going to black out this blog (it's not as if anyone would even notice, given how often I produce content) I stand with those sites that have, and I encourage everyone to stand up and make your voices heard.