With our first ever attempt on putting up a forum, we (rather I) failed miserably. So instead of going for another forum, we’ll just do a weekly discussion post where we, and you guys could voice out your concerns, thoughts, raves or rants on the topic presented, it doesn’t mean that this is just strictly game-related themes (as our first topic would attest to).
To start the ball rolling, we’d want to focus on the “big” thing in the internet right now, which is the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA to us who hate long names.
So before elaborating, I’d like to present what is SOPA?
[source: What is SOPA Bill 2012?? 7 Things to Know About Controversial Legislation]SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced last month by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. It’s a companion bill to the Protect IP Act, which targets Web companies hosting unauthorized content from movies, songs or software. It also dealt with the trade of counterfeit goods over the Internet.
Basically, the whole idea of SOPA is giving more power to big companies to intrude, bully and cut off any “offending” site. In the guise of “stopping” piracy in it’s tracks, the SOPA would instead not only harm “pirates” but rather everyone in the internet. Various websites, (with us included) have raised their opposition to the said act by shading out bits and pieces of whatever image or text they have on their own site, in form of a representation of what would happen to the internet if the SOPA gets passed.
Acts of opposition included wikipedia going offline for a whole day, flickr and wordpress “censoring” images on it’s homepage, while other blogs and sites had a “blackout” for a whole day as well. GoDaddy, a US based hosting and registrar company, experienced the brunt of the blacklash by losing more than 37,000 domains because of it’s initial support on the act.
How does this affect us in the Philippines?
On it’s surface, it would seem that this would it’s only the US will be affected, however upon closer inspection that as long as a website contains any “offending” material there will be grounds for it to be closed down.
At a glance, it’s not just a US thing because the internet ignores any geopolitical laws and statures since it practically connects us all in a global scale. In Back2Gaming alone, most of our news, features and posts here are not just about the PH gaming scene. Most of our news comes from the US and if that the SOPA gets a passing mark, it could very well hinder us posting anything “offending” to any game or company.
Also, since the PH is an “ally” of the US, there is a big chance that extradition could take place, if said company would go to that extent. Of course I’m exaggerating with the example, but you would never know right?
Currently
As of this post, SOPA has been shelved not killed, contrary to what people would want to think. With discussions to be continued come February. However, PIPA is now on the table with discussions at the senate now ongoing.
So… What now?
We’d like to hear your thoughts, comments or reactions to the whole SOPA/PIPA debacle. How it may affect YOUR own little online world.
so without further ado, DISCUSS!
20 Comments
Free internet for everyone!!Â
 INTERWEBZ IS FOR THE PEOPLE!
So right now they killed Megaupload.
http://dspy.me/xiPN8s Which makes us wonder: Did the US government require SOPA to actually make this action legit?
Considering the current laws and by-laws of the US and the action of companies, SOPA’s just a more “obvious” ploy if ever to curb online piracy imo. With the megaupload shut down as the prime example.
You gotta love how those suits in congress reacted over the SOPA Blackout saying its an abuse of privilege. Do these old people even know they’re taking away our privileges and rights? I don’t like the idea of having senior citizens dictating how something will work especially when they can’t tell the difference between the Internet and a bar of soap.
That’s the thing about the US system, most of the people in office barely know anything about the internet and rely on their “assistants” to feed them the things they say to the people.
Which only emphasizes how uninformed they are about the whole topic.
It’s like they’re putting the Great Firewall of China in the whole world, not just in America
and also goodbye to freedom of speech, now that’s what they called democracy
The reason why the movie and music industry support SOPA/PIPA is that they only want your money, not your rights
they should focus on making the “purchases” a better option than pirating them…. like what steam is doing,… I mean come on, I used to download pirated games but Steam made me change my ways…
Exactly. If they’d just spend more time creating a better content delivery, which promises to be more secure and offers much more value for money than wasting their times patent-trolling each other and suing their customers then everything else would be much better.
Sadly that’s not the case for us….
We must end the mentality of “free is more practical”, this way, people will opt to choose to buy original products rather than getting free pirated products
The thing about that is, companies are not even making “buying legally” more enticing. In fact, the companies “policies” hamper the fun factor of a lot of games specially for those who bought said game.
What I’m proposing instead is that companies should provide more reasons for us to buy their games. Steam was able to do it, why can’t they?
Oh that’s alright then, U.S citizens can rest easy in bed that your
government won’t interfere in websites you run. Forget about the rest of
the world, it’s not like the internet should be free and open or
anything like that. It amazes me that America can keep pushing out
legislation like this, sent through by lobbying companies no doubt and
always manage to get it signed into law. Usually based on
technicalities, anyone who opposes is harassed and your public relations
companies work their twisted magic.gevelwerken
not good cannot agree with you Platte daken
A SOPA-like law would be implemented here for sure. But SOPA alone can kill blogs. Blogs like this one use copyrighted material.
This is shuts down freedom to information.Â
They should’ve thought of the SOPA through imo
A big part of why MU got pwnt was because the feds found evidence that they were slacking off with policing their servers and taking down copyrighted stuff. here’s the indictment, in case you feel like making your eyeballs bleed with the great wall of legal text:
http://documents.latimes.com/justice-department-indictment-file-sharing-site-megaupload/
So they didn’t need SOPA to shut down MU, but it took a lot of work, and the entertainment industry bigwigs want all that red tape done away with so they can “stop piracy” (lulz) at the expense of American first amendment rights.Â
If SOPA becomes law.. noones safe. Imageboards will cease to exist. Forums will wither away and die. You wouldn’t be able to post a picture of Justin Beiber without running the risk of getting the website you posted on SOPA’d. It’s the fat cat entertainment industry’s wet dream.
Best part? It probably wont stop piracy. It might not even slow it down too much. THIS probability is, by far, the most facepalm inducing aspect of this whole unmitigated clusterfuck. These pirates are too good and they have been at it for too long. If you want to stop piracy you have to go after the pirates, not one of the means through which they distribute their releases. Only way THAT would work would be to turn off the internet. That would make Al Gore very angry indeed.
So in the long run, all SOPA would accomplish is hamper innovation, violate the us constitution, set a very bad precedent, piss off hackers everywhere, and make people hate the government even more.
GG.
I just wish the legislators would realize this and if ever they push for SOPA again do a more detailed and well-thought of way to really hamper piracy
[Update 12/21/2012] Local companies are now pushing for a SOPA/PIPA like legislation to curb piracy in the country…
We have to protect our rights our freedom and stand together for this SOPA
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