Gaming support faltering as boycotts surface.
Electronic Arts, Nintendo and Sony Electronics have taken their names off the list of supporters for the US Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. GamesRadar is reporting that although they initially included themselves back in September 2011 when the bill was introduced, the three gaming giants' names have been removed from the list.
The bill has seen a great outcry from various internet personalities and on various message boards. Anonymous, the hacker group, also threatened those who do support the bill. Sony's withdrawal might've been due to this threat as they were hacked this past April. Pro-SOPA sites such as GoDaddy have already started to feel the repercussions due to a recent boycott, which resulted in a withdrawal of their support.
Although Sony Electronics is no longer supporting SOPA, its music division still appears to be, as its name remains on the list along with BMI, Capitol Records, MCA Records, Marvel Entertainment, and Viacom. Meanwhile, EA told Joystiq that it never took a stand in the matter in the first place, despite its initial listing.
The SOPA bill was introduced as a means to give the US Government and private corporations the legal right to block sites they believe violate copyright laws. The bill was supposed to stop online piracy and protect rights holders, but opponents of the bill warn that SOPA is too vague in its definition of copyright offenders and could lead to the government and corporations censoring internet content as they see fit.
The bill will be voted on in late 2012. Opponents of the bill include Google, Facebook, Twitter and Paypal.
Buuut...since ESA still has their name on this (which Nintendo and Sony are a part of) doesn't it make this point moot? Instead of double dipping, they're just plain dipping...
Question: How can one division of Sony support it, while another one 'doesn't'? Sounds like they should have a unified voice in this instance.
I believe that Sony and Nintendo are separate from the ESA even though they support them. Therefore, it's not dipping of any kind. Sony is a big company and can have separate divisions have different says. It makes sense too because the bill seems particularly intended for pirated music.
I can see both sides of this. Piracy costs publishers, and by proxy gamers, a fortune every year, and If it were my money being pulled out of my pockets with seemingly no legal protection, I'd be desperate for just about anything to stop the bleeding.
That being said, this requires much more precision than a blanket law like this. I wonder if the lawmakers even know the kind of trouble this could cause? I agree that something needs to be done to combat piracy, which really is out and out theft, but this requires a scalpel, where this bill is more like a chainsaw.
Although Piracy is not a good thing, its not as bad as people make it out to be, at least I don't think so in my unprofessional opinion. Although I do believe piracy needs to be limited, it has never been been the cause of any developer to close their doors.
When I was younger, I used to pirate games and the few that were great I ended up buying. For example, who's played Arcanum? Wonderful game, and probably my most favorite CRPG of all time. I've probably bought the game at least 3 times.
Many websites seem to be at threat with this bill, and could hurt the consumer market for online buying. Seriously, this bill is so ambiguous with its specifications that I still had no idea what it was referring to most of the time, and this is after reading the first 40 pages. Or perhaps I'm just terrible at understanding law.
And weeeell, my main point is this.....I would be sad if some of my favorite websites got shutdown or seriously gimped such as Newgrounds, Youtube, and your very own Pixlbit. {T-T}
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