Gaming Companies Quietly End Official Support for SOPA
Gaming Companies Quietly End Official Support for SOPA
Posted 12/30/2011 at 3:56pm
| by Ryan Whitwam
29
Comments
Print
With each revision, the list of SOPA supporters seems to be shrinking. In the most recent silent update, gaming companies seem to be the ones pulling back. Sony, EA, and Nintendo are no longer listed as supporters of the bill, but were on the list in November. None of the companies has acknowledged the change in position.
SOPA and its companion Senate bill Protect IP, would place much more power in the hands of copyright holders. The broad wording of the bill could label many sites with user-generated content as “rogue sites,” and expose them to domain blocking by US ISPs. Experts on internet infrastructure are concerned that modifying the DNS system in this way could damage internet reliability and security.
All three gaming companies have an interest in limiting piracy of their games, but with SOPA becoming toxic withing their target demographic, it’s no surprise we are seeing pull-back. Sony, EA, and Nintendo have joined GoDaddy in no-longer supporting SOPA, but we should note that none of these companies have actually come out against the bill.
More like this
29
Comments
Comments are closed on this article
Silencer
January 02, 2012 at 11:29pm
Keep congress the F off our internet. Vote conservative (Republican.)
Silencer
January 04, 2012 at 8:17pm
Edit:
Some fresh thoughts...
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/amazon_cuts_connecticut_following_sales_tax_dispute
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/us_senate_may_move_enact_internet_sales_tax
To be fair, these aren't Democrats, they're socialists. (Like our President...)
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/belarus_attempting_bar_use_foreign_websites
firefox91
January 03, 2012 at 1:52pm
Please don't be this stupid. Republicans are no more interested in your best interests than Democrats are. They all do as their party says and never for the people. If something will put more money in their pocket, they will do it. Republican and Democrat alike. Anyone that truly thinks their party will actually make government bettert needs to go back and look at the history of their particualar party. The best you can do is vote for the best canidate and ignore the D or R next to their name.
Silencer
January 04, 2012 at 7:20pm
"Please don't be this stupid. Republicans are no more interested in your best interests than Democrats are."
Then why isn't there just one party? That's stupid. What's the difference? That's my point, you missed, first... l8r.
compro01
January 10, 2012 at 7:32am
Because then another party might form and kick them out. By passing back and forth, they can basically ensure that either a democrat or a republican will get every seat.
Of interest, they did used to be a single party. Both the Democrats and Republicans are decended from the Democratic Republican party.
compro01
January 03, 2012 at 7:28am
Right, there are NO REPUBLICANS supporting this bill. NONE AT ALL. The Congressman who introducted the bill is NOT a Republican from the 21st district of Texas.
Silencer
January 04, 2012 at 7:25pm
Hmm. The first word that *I* used, was "conservative." Followed by the word "Republican", which was in parentheses...
From Wikipedia: "Parentheses (singular, parenthesis) – also called simply brackets, or round brackets, curved brackets, oval brackets, or, colloquially, parens – contain material that could be omitted without destroying or altering the meaning of a sentence."
l8r.
knowname
December 31, 2011 at 8:25pm
SOPA doesn't bother me... even if it passes I can do without the internet... there's still IRC right?? yes noobs I just brought up the chatroom for grandpa's. Besides, even Obama has opposed SOPA. I thought it died after just a few weeks.
It's that other pending law that gives the state power to impound your a$$ for any reason they want. I can't believe such a proposal even exists.
Keith E. Whisman
December 31, 2011 at 1:10pm
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
bling581
January 03, 2012 at 11:11am
Yeah, except the part where Alderran gets blasted to bits. Did we get to that part yet?
mysterymantis
December 31, 2011 at 9:36am
SOPA is today's version of the book burnings of the past. Why were books burned? To prevent people from having the knowledge within the pages. Pages that contained damnable influence of those that were wise enough to write down their knowledge so that others may benefit from it, for all of time. Typically, the targeted books were ones that had any level of conflict with the current regimes agenda, and often were of foreign publication. Their burning was usually one of the first steps to a new regime taking over, and trying to change the fundamentals of society.
While SOPA is meant to "prevent piracy", it will eventually lead to the internet no longer being a venue of knowledge freely exchanged without interference. And it won't even stop piracy.
We will lose greatly (the people of the USA and eventually other countries), and the A-holes that wrote this piece of sh!t (corporations) will gain NOTHING! The government, however, will set a precedent that will just keep sliding down the slippery slope that eventually will lead to the complete and total censorship of the internet, all in the name of protecting profit margins for companies that can't even prove they are losing anything. Is that really a fair trade? Is that what our fore-fathers fought and died for? So that things as useless as video games, movies, and music can't be copied in place of the most important information tool EVER CREATED!!!
In the case of fundamental freedoms, you can't allow even one thing to be lost. Once lost, it takes an act of god (not gonna happen, has never happened, don't even hold your breath), or a war to get it back.
If anyone that votes yes to this gets re-elected, then I hope that someone has the balls to "remove them from office" permanently. I don't, but I'm sure my silent support of such a notion will suffice (the same as EA, Nintendo, and Sony are only publicly no longer supporting this farce).
I don't think that enough can be, or has been said, in opposition to SOPA.
aplusbex1
December 31, 2011 at 5:25am
I fully support SOPA. It will be about as effective as DRM and it biggest benefit will be companies moving their internet services to Europe which will lower latency for me. After that of course comes “the big firewall of the usa”. Just imagine an article “Flash drive smugglers caught crossing Mexico border”.
mysterymantis
December 31, 2011 at 9:42am
Of course the difference between DRM and SOPA is that DRM is a private firms attempt to protect their IP, and SOPA is a power being given to a government. DRM is an inconvenience to anyone trying to use a product, either legally or otherwise. SOPA will change the internet and eventually will effect every user in the US, and then eventually will spread it's influence everywhere else.
Is that worth lower latency? I don't think so. Though, I do hope that something is done to improve that problem for you, whether SOPA happens or not.
p3t3th3g33k
December 30, 2011 at 7:20pm
My problem with this is that even though the companies themselves might not directly support SOPA anymore, EA, Nintendo, and Sony are all members of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which still highly supports SOPA. They might pull their own name, but the companies are still supporting it through the ESA.
The Corrupted One
December 30, 2011 at 7:04pm
inb4 "DRM is bad for reasons I don't understand I heard elsewhere, so it makes stealing things okay"
As much as I like Nintendo, all of these companies are showing typical hypocrisy: Support something that furthers their agenda, and then pull out when there is backlash.
SOPA would just become another darling of the coorporation, shutter competitiors, start monopoly, launch glorious five year plan, take over world.
IF a bill that was good was going through Congress, people would be pushing back just as much. Why? Because it means a crackdown on the fences of stolen games that they partake in.
xs0u1x
December 31, 2011 at 11:39am
correct me if i'm wrong......but is the point of your post to say that anybody that opposes sopa or sopa like legislation a pirate and/or thief?
The Corrupted One
December 31, 2011 at 4:56pm
Wrong.
I'm saying that if a good bill that wouldn't result in an apocolyptic Orwellian hellhole(if it's possible) were passing through, people would be opposing it just as much as it would cut them off from the sources of free games they use so they can roll naked in money.
EthicSlave
January 02, 2012 at 2:27pm
I do believe there has yet to be a form of anti piracy that works? which completely voids your point in a way
any bill even non apocalyptic will accomplish nothing for this use and piracy will be business as usual (proxies) at any rate all it would accomplish is making dumb pirates smarter ... highly doubt that this is the goal of the bill BUT would be the exact cause and effect
a proper approach is to accept piracy and adapt their business models around it
however what you are saying is that because a law said someone shouldnt murder, steal, rape and pillage that those said laws completely prevent any of that from happening o_O!
AntonioGarrison
December 30, 2011 at 6:55pm
I saw an article about the US telling some other company not to restrict peoples access to the internet and it's content. I lol'd and thought of SOPA, hypocrites.
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
December 30, 2011 at 9:05pm
Let's turn this shit hole into China. So it can be a more repressed shit hole.
They'll be locking you up for twenty years after posting a video of your kid dancing to unlicensed music on YouTube.
Mohandas Gandhi
December 31, 2011 at 5:19am
There places that has less human right than China, for example, Turkey and Burma.
Danthrax66
December 30, 2011 at 3:57pm
I actually think go daddy came out against it you might want to double check that.
compro01
December 30, 2011 at 11:03pm
Their "withdrawl" of support was more "We'll stop supporting SOPA, but we still think it's a really good idea and if it doesn't pass, we'll support SOPA 2 : electric boogaloo more quietly next time".
kixofmyg0t
December 30, 2011 at 5:14pm
Doesn't matter. People are still pulling their domains from GoDaddy. I fully support GoDaddy going down in flames just to make an example out of them for supporting SOPA in the first place.
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
The gang discusses the GTX 690, Trinity, Ivy Bridge, Amazon, big-box stores, MMOs,...
This month's issue
Feature
Build a PC On Any Budget
Feature
Cloud Services Showdown
How-To
Encrypt Your External Drive
Build It
Upgrade an X58 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Original RickRoll Video Returns to YouTube After 24-Hour Copyright Hiatus http://t.co/MaH9Sxyy1 day 11 hours ago
- maximumpc: Corsair has decided not to go forward with its $78 million IPO, citing weak equity market conditions http://t.co/A5a4DAzj1 day 11 hours ago
- maximumpc: Want to work at Maximum PC? Our Online Managing Editor, Alex, is moving away, so we need a new one. http://t.co/9Z7JCh0E3 days 8 hours ago
