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You may recall that last year TheEnigmaticT was interviewed by Destructoid about SOPA and PIPA. We played things a bit close to the chest in that interview (TheEnigmaticT comes by his nickname honestly) because we are a Polish company and politics, legislation, and government actions of other countries aren’t generally something we feel we should comment on.

But the more we see that it looks like the US Congress may pass or [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act]PIPA, the more we feel that we need to speak out. It’s impossible to say what impact that legislation could have on a global company like GOG.com, but we have a platform that can reach out to many gamers who will be effected by this, so we need to let you know about what SOPA and PIPA are and why, if you’re American, you should be worried about them.

What are SOPA and PIPA? These are two different bills that have a stated goal of providing the US government and various IP rightsholders with tools to curb piracy and copyright infringement online. Many web giants, including Amazon, Google, Twitter, Reddit, and eBay have stressed how worried they feel about SOPA and PIPA, because while it is a method to reduce piracy and infringement, it is probably not a good one.

Will SOPA/PIPA work? It might, depending on your definition of “work.” It will put the power over what content is available on the Internet very firmly into the hands of people who are rights-holders--or who claim to be. It will restrict the scope of legitimate content allowed on websites in ways we probably don’t even know yet. A few examples of what might change if SOPA is passed: it could kill streaming of game footage or even game-chat, radically alter how your favorite user-generated content websites--including the GOG.com forums--function, and finally, it may well undermine the basic structure of the Internet.

Will SOPA/PIPA stop piracy? No. SOPA works in a fashion similar to DRM, if you ask us: it only will have an effect on people who are, by and large, honest consumers. Pirates who torrent via P2P methods will not be inconvenienced in the least by SOPA and PIPA; people who post “let’s play” walkthroughs of video games on YouTube, though, may be.

GOG.com is opposed to piracy and copyright infringement, but we know that there are good way to try and reduce piracy and bad ones. GOG.com will always oppose anti-piracy methods that threaten user privacy and freedom. We will always stay DRM-free and apply ‘same game-same price’ policy. We will always put trust in our users as the best method of fighting piracy.

SOPA is not the way to fix the problem of piracy. If you agree with us, don’t just send a tweet or shake your head in anger. Do something. Contact your congressperson or representative and tell them in no uncertain terms that you oppose this bill. There’s a chance that SOPA won’t be as bad as organizations like the EFF and Wikimedia foundations say it is, but you only have one chance to stop this before it happens.
I'm more and more concerned about wikipedia. I understand why they did the blackout and I agree that SOPA and PIPA must be stopped at any cost but their actions are not as good as they may look at first sight.
They said on this blackout page "_WE_ were building this free encyclopedia for x years" and this is a lie. They were only keeping the system alive it's the people who made the wikipedia what it is today. Secondary if the information was not theirs it was not their option to play with it in the first place. They used "free and open" but collaborative and collective resources do not even belong to them to force people to accept their ideals (unrelated to the value of these ideals). It's like if I was running a charity business for the poor and the homeless and one day I’ve thrown them away on the streets to protest against some war my country conducted somewhere; additionally I’ve bought some big antiwar posters to hang around the place. Placing those posters above my house or walking with the other protesters crowded the streets haven’t seemed to get enough attention to the war in question so I’ve done all I could. Just for a day.

Besides I never liked Jimmy Wales and his policy at Wikia (search the free Internet for it, although they tried to remove anything related to these annoying protesters). He's running a corporation and a corporation uses all available resources to become bigger and stronger to promote its ideals and to dominate the information field as a result. It’s not the charity organization they’re running, far from it. The information is a tool and they are not afraid to use it. They are too big now to get away with anything and they can influence peoples’ minds. Do we have another Internet god who will eventually abuse its power to try to forge the Internet at his will? Only time will tell.
This is not related to SOPA/PIPA in general so I’m sorry to bring this off-topic here.
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ng: They said on this blackout page "_WE_ were building this free encyclopedia for x years" and this is a lie. They were only keeping the system alive it's the people who made the wikipedia what it is today.
I believe the point is that the "we" mentioned includes the people who contribute to Wikipedia - or even read it, thus making updating a relevant matter. It's a common way to implicitly make a community, a system or an idea feel personal rather than distant. It's frequently used in pretty much everything, more often consciously than not ("we the people", "united we stand, divided we fall, "we won't stand for X" or, if you want an example of the opposite, "they shall not pass").

E: Also: I hope SOPA passes.
Post edited January 19, 2012 by AlKim
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AlKim: I believe the point is that the "we" mentioned includes the people who contribute to Wikipedia - or even read it, thus making updating a relevant matter. It's a common way to implicitly make a community, a system or an idea feel personal rather than distant. It's frequently used in pretty much everything, more often consciously than not ("we the people", "united we stand, divided we fall, "we won't stand for X" or, if you want an example of the opposite, "they shall not pass").
Yes, I know what they meant. But do they have the right to speak for everyone? I certainly did not give them the right to speak for me (although my contribution is negligible). They should've shown their stance in some news blogs or somewhere else and leave the free community out of this. The Internet mass media needs neutrality and this is far from being neutral.

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AlKim: E: Also: I hope SOPA passes.
This is the extreme position. It reads like this: "to understand the treasure of peace we need a good war". What if that war will not end as we hoped? What if SOPA passes and no aftermath actions will be able to turn the tables? This is a possibility. Think of DMCA. It was a milestone in this process and all the protests changed nothing afterwards.
The world is moving to a total censorship, do we really need a revolution to stop this? Will this revolution accomplish anything besides needless destruction?
Although I must admit I thought about the futility of this stop SOPA campaign myself. They will make yet another law like this in 3-4 months and it will pass because the people will be morally fatigued from the previous fight.
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orcishgamer: Extra Credits offered a challenge for companies like GOG, that oppose this legislation. The ESA still supports SOPA/PIPA, and whether we agree or not there are a lot of folks who believe the ESA represents the gaming industry.

E3 is run by the ESA and is their biggest money making event (so claims many people in the video). Will you refuse to attend or cover E3 unless the ESA changes their stance?

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/stand-together-the-gaming-community-vs-sopa-and-pipa

I like this challenge, because, maybe not as much for GOG, it's basically asking people to put their money where their mouth is (on both sides of the fence, in fact).
We don't usually attend E3 anyway, so I don't know that our not attending this year would send much of a message. :P
Props for GOG for opposing SOPA
So, what about ACTA now?
@ng
So you are bothered because Wikipedia is not a real charity? Not even you believed it.
They maintain the servers, pay for the bandwidth, and you can use it for free, or contribute in writing (or with money, yes). That is as far as it goes. There is no such thing as universal rights. Wikipedia is no exception.
As more and more people depend on it, and stop using other sources, it gets the power to determine what is right, what is wrong, what is the truth, what happened in the past... really frightening...
oh, and I oppose SOPA/PIPA for the same reason GOG put plainly: it does not stop pirates, but burdens everyone. (the same as whole body scanners, but tha's completely another story).
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ng: The Internet mass media needs neutrality and this is far from being neutral.
Quote from Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikipedia,_Reddit_in_'blackout'_against_SOPA,_PROTECT_IP_laws
although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not
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cachurro: As more and more people depend on it, and stop using other sources, it gets the power to determine what is right, what is wrong, what is the truth, what happened in the past... really frightening...
That's exactly what scares me. They are dangerously close to being the Internet monopoly as a source of information. It's in the human nature to abuse the power. :-(
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Miaghstir: Quote from Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikipedia,_Reddit_in_'blackout'_against_SOPA,_PROTECT_IP_laws
although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not
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Miaghstir:
Thanks for the link. I don't understand what she means by this it's just a meaningless combination of words for me. Politics is a dirty game. :-\
I'm actually for this. I'm not sure I could have a debate with the people here though, it seems you all just low rate people of opposite opinions? I don't get it.

Well, the loudest doesn't always mean you have all the answers and think you know everything about everything. There's a quite a lot of quiet bunches out there too. Calling people stupid and idiots and trying to degrade anyone with a different idea of it in this thread really helps your (the masses) case, eh? Yeah, you sure changed my mind with your civil attitudes :).

Anyway, back to playing Heroes of Might and Magic 1 :D.
POTUS singing Al Green, now on your phone: http://OFA.BO/1tw5r4
Isn't that PIRACY?

Call SOPA!
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ng: Thanks for the link. I don't understand what she means by this it's just a meaningless combination of words for me. Politics is a dirty game. :-\
Although the articles are written with a neutral stance, Wikipedia itself cannot be neutral concerning the threat to the internet that SOPA, PIPA, and their relatives is. If any of the sites that Wikipedia links to for sources or information happens to contain pirated material (even if the content was added to the site _after_ the link was added to Wikipedia), Wikipedia could be held responsible for linking there and forced to shut down.

Due to how Wikipedia operates, with anyone able to author and edit articles, the work of continuously monitoring linked sites and figure out if they contain pirated material or not is quite close to impossible.
Post edited January 21, 2012 by Miaghstir
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Miaghstir: Although the articles are written with a neutral stance, Wikipedia itself cannot be neutral concerning the threat to the internet that SOPA, PIPA, and their relatives is. If any of the sites that Wikipedia links to for sources or information happens to contain pirated material (even if the content was added to the site _after_ the link was added to Wikipedia), Wikipedia could be held responsible for linking there and forced to shut down.

Due to how Wikipedia operates, with anyone able to author and edit articles, the work of continuously monitoring linked sites and figure out if they contain pirated material or not is quite close to impossible.
I agree that SOPA may threaten the well-being of Wikipedia and they should've taken their stance by stating it anywhere (the front page was fine and enough for all the people to see it). But they have voluntarily disabled the access to the _free_ information (this information does not belong to them in the first place) in an attempt to blackmail people into accepting their views.
Let’s finish this strictly off-topic conversation, there's not much to talk about here anyway.
MPAA hacked after MegaUpload taken down, responds
We've obtained a statement from the MPAA in response.

It reads:

"...

Unfortunately, some groups believe that speech or ideas that they disagree with should be silenced. This could not be more wrong. No matter the point of view, everyone has a right to be heard.

The motion picture and television industry has always been a strong supporter of free speech. We strongly condemn any attempts to silence any groups or individuals.

The Internet is home to creativity, innovation and free speech. We want to keep it that way."
Okay, let's forget about SOPA and PIPA for a minute here. This is the MPAA making that statement.

This is the MPAA that hands out the movie ratings movies have to get to be shown in most theaters, or even get any advertising. The rating system that basically lets the MPAA control the movie industry, and discourages risk-taking. And say the MPAA slapped your movie with an NC-17, which means it won't be shown at most theaters or sold at most stores? Either you can remove the edgy content and hope it gets an R rating now (but I guess it's not censorship if you're voluntarily removing the questionable material, right?), or release it as-is and not have anyone see your work (but I guess it's not silencing you because your movie's still out there to be seen by anyone who somehow manages finds it, right?).

This is the MPAA that regularly kills movie ideas, either by somebody who doesn't want an idea to compete with their own buying a script with no intention to ever make the film, or because the person who actually wanted to make the movie couldn't afford to rebuy the script or rights from them, or because it was the writer's spec script they turned in to a producer who was more interested in sending them off to write the new Transformers movie, or any other number of reasons.

And the television industry? Johnny Carson once said television was the only medium that eats its young. Okay, it's hardly the only medium that eats its young, but the point stands.

So you'll forgive me when I laugh hysterically at the MPAA saying they've always been a strong supporter of free speech.
Post edited January 22, 2012 by Codiekitty