Jimquisition: Sony, Nintendo, EA and SOPA

daxterx2005

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So...we're in a recession, unemployment is at an all time high and they think its a good idea to pass a bill that will put MORE people out of jobs?
MURKA WTF?
 

TailsRodrigez

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Versuvius said:
I'm just wondering. If this passes and everyone who hosts themselves in the US, hop country and host their servers elsewhere, how long it will take the US to flop its dick around and extend its big floppy juridstriction to other countries? And how long it will take them to be told to fuck right off.
The whole point of SOPA is to do just that
 

Muco5681

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people need to calm down a little yes it is a shit law i compleatly agree with it but do you guys honestly think that google (owner of youtube) IGN and other large firms would not pony (no pun intended) op with some pretty heavy waight lawyer power to stop this law dead in its track?
 

Michael Hirst

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Well I'm not American and thus can't sign most of the petitions against the crap but I do strongly urge everyone who can do so. It's a completely ridiculous bill put forward by companies who don't even fucking understand how much communication on the internet HELPS their cause.

Way I see it is if America can't stop this bs from getting through then the rest of the world will slowly follow until the internet is censored globally. So yeah please do your best to stop this shit and if it somehow does go through then you should fucking protest, way more than that 99% occupy wall street stuff.

Also has anyone stood up and said how censoring the internet is the kind of shit they do in Communist states like China? Just putting that one out there, that sworn enemy of the USA (Communism I mean not China) who are always being called out on their restricted freedoms and harsh censorship.
 

Furioso

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HyenaThePirate said:
Therumancer said:
First thing is first.

Jim, I don't know how much your acting for effect but I think you overdid it a bit this time as you seemed a little bit off your rocker and a little incoherant at times. You might want to sit back and try and re-record this message a bit calmer and elaborate a bit more.... also the whole "Streaming God Of War for Charity" thing was kind of "WTF" because honestly giving away someone elses game for a charity (which might not even be genuine despite what was claimed) would be pushing it.

That said, this bill *IS* really bad, and represents a lot of things that game and media companies have wanted to push for a long time, and it is really an Orwellian nightmare of a bill.

The issue with this is that by definition things like game reviews, let's plays, or even people doing FAQS for sites like Gamefaqs could also be considered violations. High traffic sites like Youtube which couldn't be effectively policed if they wanted to are pretty much doomed, and this is to say nothing of P2P services which do have legitimate uses other than piracy.

Strictly speaking a game company SHOULD have to go through the proper channels and specifically identify and chase down specific offenders as opposed to being able to decide "well Youtube has something we don't like, so let's lock it down". The issue of
course being that it's too time consuming and expensive to pursue things that way. Even verifying and pursueing a single case could take a lot of time and money, so it's easier to just shut down anything they find suspicious.

I'll also be blunt in saying that I think the current issues with Metacritic have a lot to do with this as well, albiet indirectly. Simply put, the game industry is realizing that while it can sway professional reviewers and ensure no product with a decent investment of cash gets lower than say an 8/10 rating in most cases, it can't do this reliably with specific users or independant reviewers who have no financial stake, not even so far as them being able to threaten to pull advertising revenues. Given that some popular reviewers on things like Youtube can pull truely massive numbers of hits, and actually do sway opinions, the gaming industry is doubtlessly also considering that they could shut these sources down. Someone like Whiteythereviewer, or Danae from Checkpoint Basement Level could get Youtube shut down as a whole just by showing footage from a game they are playing to illustrate a point.

I also know that there has been some talk fairly recently about the problem with online FAQS and walkthroughs, because game companies and cluebook publishers increasingly want to charge $20 or more for digital strategy guides, and really there is no point to buying a digital strategy guide when a month or two after the game comes out (tops) someone can just hop on Gamefaqs and find a guide there, or even find a dedicated wiki to the game in some cases. This bill could be used to basically shut down their competition here, and close every cheat/strategy site and fan page/database on the internet which I'm sure some bean counter is drooling about as I write this as they count digital cluebook sales figures in their heads.

This is a lot of stuff I'm talking about here, but the bottom line is that as I understand this, this is going to be a very bad thing. This law exists to basically circumvent the existing system because companies find it inconveinent to play by the rules.

Of course a lot of this also gets into intellectual property laws to begin with, and I think a lot of these problems started when they made them so tight knit for the owner of an IP. Technically according to the definition something like a FAQ should be illegal despite the long-term existance of such things... and that's part of the problem. When we're dealing with properties that are pure information (as opposed to say information used to make an actual product like a patent or copyright) I think there needs to be a lot of limitations put in place because there is more at stake than the information itself, but people's very freedom to communicate when you get down to it. In the case of IPs I think it's a problem when say China takes the formula for a drug like Viagra, makes an actual physical product using it, and then sells it. In this case though your pretty much saying that a picture of a game being used for review purposes, or even just text and descriptions talking about content in the game, could be considered theft. This is more akin to me telling someone that Viagra exists, or my experiences with the drug rather than stealing an actual, physical product. Games DO need to be protected from someone copying the entire thing and giving it away for free (or selling it) but this is far too inclusive to my understanding, and Jim is right that this law could shut down pretty much the entire internet gaming community, or at the very least turn it into a paranoid police state with everyone running a website being terrified to let anything be said for fear of being shut down. Just imagine a situation where a spoiler might not just ruin a bit of a game for someone, but actually be a felony because you've revealed protected information.
This!

You know what gets ME?! Every time I see a television advertisement for a game where it boldly proclaims that it's a "9 out of 10" or "Greatest game this console generation!" and then the "quote" is attributed to THE COMPANY producing the game!

I mean, saying "Uncharted 3 blows away any other game on the market - Playstation magazine" is just SONY's way of tooting their own horn. Or when I see "Amazing, Outstanding - Xbox magazine" for a Microsoft published game.. There's something incredibly misleading about that.
...You do realize that Microsoft/Sony doesn't actually own those magazines right? They are just magazines that exclusively cover Xbox/PS3 content
 

teisjm

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CustomMagnum said:
teisjm said:
Just currious, since it's just an american bill, and not a world-wide one, won't the publishers be powerless, if the servers hosting the stuff is located somewhere outside the US?

Cause if stuff works the way i udnerstand it to work, couldn't sites like the escapist just move their servers to a different country?
Then the publishers, would have to to to the ISPs and make them block content ever so often, and that would be the ISPs choice, and since they want paying costumers, they're probably not gonna cut some content from their "store" willingly, just cause EA is bitching about some site using a picture from their game, in a review of said fucking game.

If this passes, will dev's be able choose who's allowed to review their games as well? or can they just limit them to using text, and not any imagery at all?

With all the shit thats going on, i'd love to see the world of gamers unite, get a few solid games that can hold for the time beeing, and buycot games all together, untill the indistry collapses and dies screaming, and then watch it claw it's way back, hopefully more humble than before.
Nope, they'll be perfectly in fine. They have the power to demand that the ISPs block the sites entirely, without any sort of oversight at all, without even having to state what the site is doing at all.

And yeah, they will. Heck, for all we know, they'll probably be able to claim using the very name of the game is copyright infringement, and force a bad review to be taken down. Remember, this bill gives them corporations the ability to censor the internet without any oversight at all.

And it's not just games, but movies and music industries as well. This is the same type of stuff that China does to censor non-government sanctioned opinions.
Well, guess that at least the ISP's will be hiring more people, to put up with the constant flow of demands from fucktard the coorporations planning to use this law.

If this passes, won't people be still able to proxy past the blocks anyways?
again, i can't possibly imagine, that they can shut down sites hosted outside the US, that are legal outside the US, so won't it have as little effect as when my ISP blocks pirate-bay?
 

TheMadDoctorsCat

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Versuvius said:
I'm just wondering. If this passes and everyone who hosts themselves in the US, hop country and host their servers elsewhere, how long it will take the US to flop its dick around and extend its big floppy juridstriction to other countries? And how long it will take them to be told to fuck right off.
Well this is exactly what's going to happen. American businesses won't be willing to invest in IP from the US so they'll take their business to "IP-free" zones. The same way there are tax-free zones like the Caymans right now. Say goodbye to your American tradition of free trade for local businesses, big and small.
 

Spud of Doom

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It's a depressing situation. Thankfully, over 700,000 people signed an online petition opposing it in the last week or so.

http://demandprogress.org/
http://stopcensorship.org/
 

Aerograt

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I really hope some publishers and developers put their foot down and call this bill out on the sheer ridiculousness of it. This could literally stop people from posting their friggin' opinions about a game, something that obviously conflicts with freedom of speech.

edit: Oh come on, why do I need my address and zip code to fill out these petitions?
 

Sizzle Montyjing

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Apr 5, 2011
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Oh yay.
This again.
Haven't we gone through this already?

You mean there's another one to add to the pile?
Alright, put it on.
 

Wolf Hagen

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Yeah, as someone already affected by corporate censorship (at least two Videos of the posted ones where "not avaiable in your contry" kind of Videos), this bill is even more harsh, then what I and other Germans are facing (thank you GEMA for your everlasting fight for your Highwaymen way of making money) by now.

The situation here is, that round about 1/6 of Toutube videos (the number is just vage) are unviewable for German Viewers (by youtube because of the GEMA).

They do the best to censor it, because the didn't get their licence money so far, and this even affects game reviews where someone cut a piece of music in it, or old TV series Episodes where in the background an 80's classic is playing.

I know that Youtube censors even sometimes for US citisens / in General, but fucking hell, if that bill passes, some sites would have to rent their servers in Canada (if that helps) to avoid beeing bugged by the companys lawyers.

Please dear U.S. Americans, please don't let it pass, or a good chunk of the internet will become digital wasteland
 

Racecarlock

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Guys, it's OVER. Three corporations with tons and tons of money behind them support the bill. Our government loves corporations. Download as many gameplay videos as you can, maybe get some reviews off of there too, and then we'll try to cope. We can't win. We've been losing since citizens united. It's over. The reviews and previews and FAQ and cheat sections of the internet are done. And now that they'll probably have internet control, they'll also probably block indie publishers and developers websties too, along with all freeware since that could also be competition. We can't stop them. I have learned this. Just enjoy the internet while it still lives. Our freedom of speech? That's done for. Oh, and prepare for something like norsefire to take over the US government, because that's probably going to happen.

Don't worry too much though, another kind of net will take the internet's place. Maybe.
 

Ubermetalhed

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Sep 15, 2009
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This is ridiculous. So ridiculous I think it will be highly unlikely this will ever be passed. I hope I don't eat those words...

Also this may be proof that Hideo Kojima is a wizard/prophet.
 

Owlslayer

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Nov 26, 2009
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Well, i hope this doesn't pass. Cause if it will...damn. Can't really imagine what a shitstorm will happen.
 

Prof. Monkeypox

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CustomMagnum said:
Sir Shockwave said:
Oh Jim, just do what I do for the Blog - use the written and recorded one for next week X3

Quick EDIT - Wow. Seems America's having it bad right now. First there's the Protect IP act, now this...unless the two are one and the same.
Yeah, don't worry. They're the same bill. So this country's only trying to kill itself once, not twice.
Oh goody. So joining petitions against the PIPA (or whatever it would be) and spreading the word on it was helping- I was worried that I'd have to spread the word all over again.

Not that I'd mind helping out a good cause- though I'd be depressed if there were two of these fucking bills in the works.
 

Ukomba

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Prof. Monkeypox said:
CustomMagnum said:
Sir Shockwave said:
Oh Jim, just do what I do for the Blog - use the written and recorded one for next week X3

Quick EDIT - Wow. Seems America's having it bad right now. First there's the Protect IP act, now this...unless the two are one and the same.
Yeah, don't worry. They're the same bill. So this country's only trying to kill itself once, not twice.
Oh goody. So joining petitions against the PIPA (or whatever it would be) and spreading the word on it was helping- I was worried that I'd have to spread the word all over again.

Not that I'd mind helping out a good cause- though I'd be depressed if there were two of these fucking bills in the works.
They're different bills. Protect IP is Senate Bill S.968, Stop Online Piracy Act is House Resolution H.R.3261.