Friday, January 6, 2012

Oppose SOPA

Hey guys. Well, my list of my most anticipated games of 2012 should be up over the weekend, but right now I want to point you somewhere very important.

Right now, the internet is a pretty good safe haven that allows people to express their views in ways that cannot be expressed anywhere else. There are bad eggs in this with sites solely dedicated to violating the copyright from artists, whether those be movies, music or video games.

However, this should not be an excuse to take this safe haven away. This is unfortunately what is being debated in Congress now with the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. It sounds nice but the implications that this bill carries are anything but nice, allowing the government and companies to essentially block websites that are even ACCUSED of copyright infringement without any chance for the owner of the website to defend him/herself. Websites that host user-created content are also in danger as they can be shut down for stuff they didn't even make.

As to what violates copyright infringement, that is very vague. Sure there are obvious examples like posting full movies. But are Let's Plays copyright infringement? Is using a few clips from a movie copyright infringement? It's not really made clear which just shows how flawed this bill really is and how dangerous it is.

For my readers from America (most of you), I urge you to go to THIS ADDRESS and take two minutes tops to send an e-mail to your two senators and your district representative to express how utterly unacceptable this bill is and that you are not going to stand for it.

Please, let them know that this is too far.

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