Nintendo, Sony, EA support Stop Online Piracy Act
Nintendo, Sony, and EA were all listed as corporate sponsors of a letter urging lawmakers to create new anti-piracy legislation, which has now been introduced as the Stop Online Piracy Act.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (HR 3261) has been creating a stir over free-speech concerns recently. The bill before the US Congress is ostensibly meant to prevent copyright infringement, but it also broadens the legal definition of "willful infringement" and has raised concerns of free speech suppression and government censorship. Now we've learned that Nintendo, Sony, and EA are counted as supporters of the bill.
A letter (via Joystiq), written before SOPA was drafted, urges lawmakers to enact such a bill, and the three video game giants are listed among the sponsors. Sony is actually listed more than once, split among its various brands of Sony Electronics, Sony Pictures, and Sony Music.
Obviously, all three have a vested interest in preventing piracy, but the bill has gained opposition in the tech sector as well. Companies such as Google, Zynga, Facebook, and Twitter oppose the bill, along with organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
The bill itself has a decent chance of passing, as it's gained bi-partisan support under the premise that it will protect US jobs. If you want to take action, your best bet is to contact your local representative.
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Steve Watts posted a new article, Nintendo, Sony, EA support Stop Online Piracy Act.
Nintendo, Sony, and EA were all listed as corporate sponsors of a letter urging lawmakers to create new anti-piracy legislation, which has now been introduced as the Stop Online Piracy Act.-
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For WA State folks, direct link to send off an email to our Congressman
https://inslee.house.gov/contact-me/email-jay
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The ESA also signed this letter, which includes Epic, Ubisoft, Take Two, THQ, Eidos, Capcom, Square and nVidia. It also includes a ton of apparel companies.
This letter was also drafted before the bill, so being on the side of "hey, we would appreciate something being done about black market retailers selling people knock off versions of our stuff" is not the same as supporting widespread internet censorship. -
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that doesn't even matter. it puts the burden of piracy control onto parties that aren't even distributing it, like ISPs and other service providers, or social networks. it's fucking absurd that someone could potentially show up on any random website and post a link to the pirate bay or something and it's the fault of the website he posted it on. it would basically cripple the internet, which is about 10000x worse for capitalism than all the piracy that has ever taken place combined.
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