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?
MURKA WTF?
The whole point of SOPA is to do just thatVersuvius 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.
...You do realize that Microsoft/Sony doesn't actually own those magazines right? They are just magazines that exclusively cover Xbox/PS3 contentHyenaThePirate said:This!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.
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.
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.CustomMagnum said: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.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.
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 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.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 true meaning of the year 2012 prophecy.corneth said:that's it, the internet's over
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.CustomMagnum said:Yeah, don't worry. They're the same bill. So this country's only trying to kill itself once, not twice.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.
They're different bills. Protect IP is Senate Bill S.968, Stop Online Piracy Act is House Resolution H.R.3261.Prof. Monkeypox said: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.CustomMagnum said:Yeah, don't worry. They're the same bill. So this country's only trying to kill itself once, not twice.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.
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.