In YouTube Right Now, the Daily Dot looks at videos that catch our eyes, push our buttons, and move our dials—and that you’ve just got to watch. Right now!
Last month, we profiled nerdcore rapper Dan Bull about his Epic Skyrim Rap. The British musician has a knack for taking the video games we like and immortalizing them in song.
But if the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) passes tomorrow, Bull’s YouTube rapping way of life might come to an end. His parody videos, which contain game footage and references to copyrighted game characters, would be in violation of the act.
However, Bull wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Even though Bull is British, he said the American act goes against everything he stands for.
“As an Internet geek, a musician, and a non-evil person, SOPA is abhorrent,” he told Boing Boing.
Bull wrote a rap song about why SOPA was wrong. Even better, he crowdsourced it. After he finished writing the song, he asked his Facebook followers to take pictures of themselves with the lyrics. He got more responses than he could fit in the music video.
“People from all around the world wanted to share in the creative process, for free, and to me that demonstrates the best of what the Internet is about,” he said in the interview.
The final cut depicts a different person holding up the lyrics for each verse of the rap.
“We had great fun making this video, and I hope it comes across as a great example of precisely what SOPA will destroy—free speech, free culture and a free Internet,” he said.
