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Bringing on the Blackout

© Ellen Ross

Activism has changed in thirty years.

In the U.S. in May of 1970, young people were terrified of being killed, either in the war or in the course of protesting the war. After the deaths at Kent State, a generation wondered whether or not they had a future. It was only after the war was over that many shifted their energies to less life-threatening causes, like bringing "Star Trek" back to television, after the heroic effort to give it one more season in 1968 had won only.... well, one more season. And yet, the ideals of "Star Trek" had already had a tremendous impact on that generation.

In many ways, we live in a smaller and more civilized world now, as the 'net and the World Wide Web have made the concept of the global village a reality. Instead of meeting on a battlefield, young people from around the world are meeting in chat rooms. The second most significant cultural bridge that reaches around the globe (after sex, that first universal constant) is television, the popular culture which permeates the world. We share a common vocabulary as long as we can talk about "The X-Files" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

So perhaps it shouldn't be a huge surprise that the focus of so much youthful activism today is the online world, and more particularly, the online world of fandom, where our contemporary mythology lives, breathes, and is constantly being deconstructed and re-created. Perhaps even more than religion, today it is fandom which gives us a shared set of symbols through which we understand ourselves and each other.

And, when someone tries to take that away, it can feel almost as threatening as real bullets.

On May 13, 2000, fans across the World Wide Web are shutting down their sites for one day, as a protest against the efforts of 20th Century Fox to restrict the use of copyrighted content on fan websites. The fandoms which have been most particularly targeted by the cease-and-desist letters from 20th Century Fox are "The X-Files" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

The copyright issues involved are murky and difficult. At one extreme, sites which make entire episodes available for download appear to be in clear violation of the intellectual property rights of the owners of these shows, which are, after all, a money-making product. At the other extreme, fan commentary, reviews and discussion of the shows seem to fall squarely within the traditionally acceptable realm of "fair use." In the middle is a vast, uncharted gray area, into which many of the lovingly maintained fan websites fall.

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