In today's Developer Perspectives, we take a look at SOPA/PIPA, two pieces of legislation currently active in the United States Congress. We get a unique peek at why this is so alarming to those who make the games we love. Read on!

On Wednesday, I said on Twitter: "Forums are too dangerous for indie games/individuals to operate if SOPA/PIPA passes." I said that from the perspective of a developer, and a couple people rightly called me out on that. I might as well use a column called "Developer Perspectives" to explain.

Read more of Sanya Weathers' Developer Perspectives: Why I'm Freaking Out Over SOPA/PIPA.

My main beef with SOPA is that they think it's really going to stop the main culprits of pirating. Anyone who knows how to pirate already, should know how to work around sopa (key word: DNS) and it won't stop internet piracy. However, it will give the govt free range to pick and choose what they want on the net, which is NOT ok by me

also the link is broken

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16596577

Excellent observation and in a very similiar boat to what you mention it has myself and my small indie company fearful.

We have an established community and admitedly they aren't saints I already pull 14 hr days Mon - Friday just to stay on top of things and within budget something like SOPA would outright kill us we couldnt take on the manpower I couldnt put in the extra hours which leaves the 1 option you mention and thats the death of the official forums and dev/player interaction.

I am finding this annoying now.

I have been campaigning to stop SOPA (As an ENGLISHMAN) since September last year. Now suddenly everyone claims to be against it and care.

I love the fact it looks like we have stopped it. YAY internet.

But where were these articles MMORPG.com last year? When it actually would have made a difference.

A great TED video about SOPA/PIPA that you must watch and share: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2dF-IsH0I

A new sort of grass roots organization for consumer advocacy in gaming: http://www.leagueforgamers.org/

All the SOPA uproar makes me laugh.

See, I like to try and look at the big picture.

SOPA is a symptom of the bigger problem. a bigger problem of 'Bigger Brother'. To me it almost sounds like a plot out of those classic's I read by Bradbury and Huxley. Movies I saw like Logan's Run.

If you arent against SOPA you are against Free Speech, and for Government controling your life.

Take a minute and read: "Brave New World" by Huxley, and "Farehneight 451" by Bradbury. Then call whatever 'democratic' represenative you have and scream at them to stop teh maddness.

ya the way american work is this,the hammer on the nail they see they dont see nail no issue ,they see a nail they ll hammer it in who is the board recieving the blow while the nail gets hammered it is the entity ownind the web site.oh they ll slap the hand of the one linking if they find he or she is a heavy user will do bigger mesure ,but they willl still push to put the one hosting it (even tho he didnt know)to the street without web access probably.

my beef with sopa is someone gets to control the web ,and this is one thing the tv ,and media of various acaby have been wonting for years ,this sopa /pipa is a direct counter mesure to netneutrality law that was passed in eu!ipower(athene and reese and furious among other)pushed very hard to get this to protect the web.because no one should have the right to control the web

and if for any reason they find ways to control the web (or their part of it)the web WILL get fragmented.you will end up with ,some http,some with fttp ,some with 1ttp or wtchemeacallit.any thinking it wouldnt happen is delusionnal .so instead of one world wide web ,we would have million possible billion regional wide web!and i dont want that!

It was a matter of time  power & governments would try to get the control over internet.

It has become a threat to stablished powers since  people of the world can freely share information...

Movements like the one shown worldwide the 15th of October  with the movement "Occupy Wallstreet"

have shown to the power than citizens around the globe can strike back worlwide & organized using internet....

and that scared the hell out of them.... Piracy is just an excuse to control the net.

STOP SOPA!

If you don't understand why SOPA was written the way it is take a quick look at any torrent search engine. What they're doing is perfectly legal, for now. Don't download anything that is illegal.  It's the government using broadly written poorly crafted legislation to try and kill the unkillable. This is all about the horrendously stupid idea that you can legislate file sharing out of existance. They might as well try to make it illegal to borrow a book from your neighbor by banning paper.

In all honesty.. I am one freak-out over SOPA from actually becomming a supporter, just for the living heck of it.

Yes it is a pile of horse droppings that is and will be about as effective as hunting mosquitos with a howitser, but i fail to see how it is the end of the free world as we know it... If the free world as we know it endured christianity i am very much sure it will endure this too... Not saying people should not oppose it, it is after all a free "world" and you guys pay salary for your senators for a reason... primarly for them to rule as they see fit and listen to your complaints.. from time to time these will intersect. (look up the term "repsrentative democracy" but since there are free elections it does not matter all that much. And even if it shoudl pass actually using it will be a great deal more hairy. In fact the only ones who reeeeeaaaally loose on this is Google (and similar companies) who will have to hire a boat laod of people extra to handle the added amount of administration, and ofc your ISP, for pretty much the same reason.

But i wish you good luck... Were i live we have similar laws and the free world have yet to crumble in to a pile and burn.

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Originally posted by zymurgeist
If you don't understand why SOPA was written the way it is take a quick look at any torrent search engine. What they're doing is perfectly legal, for now. Don't download anything that is illegal.  It's the government using broadly written poorly crafted legislation to try and kill the unkillable. This is all about the horrendously stupid idea that you can legislate file sharing out of existance. They might as well try to make it illegal to borrow a book from your neighbor by banning paper.

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If you think ANYTHING in SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, etc is about actual piracy then you are either naive, misinformed or very unobservant.

 Its not about piracy. Its about corporate censorship.  Draconic-sized megacorporatios under ESA baner and etc, retaining their market share.  

Its not about politics.
its not bout beliefs.
its not about piracy.
its about power. Power and censorship

---

Originally posted by tawess
In all honesty.. I am one freak-out over SOPA from actually becomming a supporter, just for the living heck of it.Yes it is a pile of horse droppings that is and will be about as effective as hunting mosquitos with a howitser, but i fail to see how it is the end of the free world as we know it... If the free world as we know it endured christianity i am very much sure it will endure this too... Not saying people should not oppose it, it is after all a free "world" and you guys pay salary for your senators for a reason... primarly for them to rule as they see fit and listen to your complaints.. from time to time these will intersect. (look up the term "repsrentative democracy" but since there are free elections it does not matter all that much. And even if it shoudl pass actually using it will be a great deal more hairy. In fact the only ones who reeeeeaaaally loose on this is Google (and similar companies) who will have to hire a boat laod of people extra to handle the added amount of administration, and ofc your ISP, for pretty much the same reason.But i wish you good luck... Were i live we have similar laws and the free world have yet to crumble in to a pile and burn.

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The country you are in most likely does not own the majority of the internet, nor has Google abide by its laws, nor paypal, nor has majority of internet's dns servers being physically there.

You are looking at the situation in way too shallow way. I suggest you to research a bit on the actual possible damage of this bill globally. :)

The people who want SOPA/PIPA (the MPAA & Co.) and the people wrote SOPA/PIPA (a bunch of 60+ senators) do not care if a game like Dominus disappears because of their law. They literally do not care if the internet disappears. From their perspective, the world was a much better place before all of this internet stuff anyway.

But really, the law would have been useless. It would have taken less than a week for an alternative DNS system to spring up (some already exist) and business would continue as usual. Companies that wanted to stay in business (especially outside of the U.S.) would participate in the new DNS system and there ya go.

It makes me sad that I voted for any of these people or that I helped finance any entertainment industry companies.

Tin foil hats off please.

It is about piracy, and it's about MONEY and the corporations and entities losing it due to piracy.

So they pad a few congressional pockets, help write up a really, really poorly written bill or two - internet backlashes, victory for internet right?

They will pass something, something to help curb piracy.

Constructive criticism and fact based arguments to support a new version of the bill that doesn't place the burden of truth on the accused.

Poorly written bill, but something needs to be done.

Piracy IS illegal.

Here's a grown up, adult solution to the problem -

PAY for material from artists, corporations, companies, and other such groups that you like and want to support. Vote with your wallet.

Capitalism.

"There is NO such thing as a free lunch."

YOU, the movie/game/music illegal downloader brought this on us.

The entitlement this generation feels... that they "deserve" to steal is just laughable. Not being able to afford something you want to have is no justification for stealing it. That is called "life" and "reality."

Want to protest so that the government will notice?

Go to the supporting officials websites and link to copyrighted material.

Then remind the official that they as the host are now responsible for that infringement. Remind them of what will be required of them as the accused. Remind them about the time limit they now have to remove or prove the link doesn't exist.

Now the kicker. Remind them that we the people will put links on their site every day for the rest of the time they are in office. I hope they enjoy learning about the internet quickly or face the law they wrote.

yep ,it is all about censorship,with this tool they can decide.check your mobile internet!could you game on it like in wow not because it cant do but because data cost would be prohibitive,this is one of the thing that WILL happen with sopa and pipa,and only those rich or with lobby power will have dencent access,check one exemple ,in the carolina south or north one city tried to lunch their own internet access because their citizen was too poor to afford it you know what happened with this very good idea ,the city was sued .they couldnt dev internet.wtf is this crap we dont have sopa yet!imagine how bad it would be if sopa was there.nobody could afford to defend themselves against to lobbying power and the big corporation.so everything the copr would say would pass because nobody has the amount of money required to defend vs the corporative.sopa and pipa is a bad idea because it make someone boss of the internet and NOBODY IS BOSS OF THE INTERNETit is for the world wide web not a tool for the greedy billionaire to play with!

SOPA wont end piracy, im sure of that.

its funny It just came to my mind that SOPA would piss hackers off and make them forget about poor old SONY and chase the big boy's (government) data center. LOL

Does anyone else feel like this is turning out like "V for Vendetta"?  The government taking over everything.  The "Voice of Britain?"  Yeah.

on a side note, maybe if the state of Entertainment wasn't so mediocre, people would be more enticed to actually buy the product.

Like the saying goes "fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me"f

<------ Tired of being fooled by movies/games/TV shows/Music that gets hyped beyond belief than turns out to be just the same old garbage (Transformers anyone?)

Seriously, I would never pirate a game I truly enjoyed playing, or one that had a small purchase price and was from an indie developer (Minecraft).

Then again I'm also hyper-critical of politicians in general, especially after everything the US has done to other countries, then when the other countries do the exact same thing, whoa whoa whoa we got a problem.

Biggest group of spineless individuals ever--------United States Government

Originally posted by BadSpock

Tin foil hats off please.

It is about piracy, and it's about MONEY and the corporations and entities losing it due to piracy.

Here's a grown up, adult solution to the problem -

PAY for material from artists, corporations, companies, and other such groups that you like and want to support. Vote with your wallet.

YOU, the movie/game/music illegal downloader brought this on us.

The entitlement this generation feels... that they "deserve" to steal is just laughable. Not being able to afford something you want to have is no justification for stealing it. That is called "life" and "reality."

Corporations cant lose what they didn't have in the first place

Piracy IS a form of "voting with your wallet". In most instances it tells corporations their product is worth having, but not at the given price.

The corporations have brought this upon themselves by pricing their product higher than a lot of people feel its worth.

No one is entitled to steal. While I don't wholly agree with piracy, I can understand why it exists, and I don't believe it's the fault of the pirates.

Originally posted by BadSpock

Tin foil hats off please.

It is about piracy, and it's about MONEY and the corporations and entities losing it due to piracy.

So they pad a few congressional pockets, help write up a really, really poorly written bill or two - internet backlashes, victory for internet right

They will pass something, something to help curb piracy.

Constructive criticism and fact based arguments to support a new version of the bill that doesn't place the burden of truth on the accused.

Poorly written bill, but something needs to be done.

Piracy IS illegal.

Here's a grown up, adult solution to the problem -

PAY for material from artists, corporations, companies, and other such groups that you like and want to support. Vote with your wallet.

Capitalism.

"There is NO such thing as a free lunch."

YOU, the movie/game/music illegal downloader brought this on us.

The entitlement this generation feels... that they "deserve" to steal is just laughable. Not being able to afford something you want to have is no justification for stealing it. That is called "life" and "reality."

 

 

even though i'm just a young wippersnapper i think i have a revelation for you: sopa/pipa won't stop piracy. you said it yourself: piracy is illegal, so what do they care about a new law? nada. the problem with these bills is that they would seriously harm legitimate businesses tryin to use the internet. like the article stated small, online businesses with any form of public community input would be forced to filter that input looking for anything that might cause a company to come down on them.

sopa/pipa won't do anything that it set out to do. and while we're running with the folky sayings: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."