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General discussion (archive)GOG.com Joins Opposition to SOPA & PIPA(243 posts)(243 posts)
(243 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 13, 2012
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.
Posted January 13, 2012
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GeneralSarevok: The developers of Firefall, Red 5, have announced that they will boycott E3 if the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) does not pull their support for these bills. http://www.shacknews.com/article/71965/firefall-dev-shutting-down-beta-site-in-protest-of-sopa
Just one more reason I will be playing Firefall and be purchasing from their eshop, these guys are fucking awesome.
Posted January 14, 2012
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Protoss: i.e. governmental censorship - that was outlawed for good reason in my country after the last world war.
Bit off topic, but I had heard that there is government censorship in Germany. Specifically, the Nazi symbol and some video games.
Posted January 14, 2012
There is no democracy in this world since after ancient Greece (and my country is far from being any different). My only hope that the European people may still live in some peace in spite of any corruption among those in power. :-(
Post edited January 14, 2012 by ng
Posted January 14, 2012
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Protoss: i.e. governmental censorship - that was outlawed for good reason in my country after the last world war.
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Immoli: Bit off topic, but I had heard that there is government censorship in Germany. Specifically, the Nazi symbol and some video games.
That's true, the swastika is censored here, but not if used in a scientific context or such as art. For video games, the censorship is not by government, but by the video game producers. Theoretically they would be able to import most stuff and sell it, but can't advertise it on places that minors can access.

The big issue here is that our politicians are too dumb to understand that video games ARE art.

Oh yes, and our government is big in supporting nazis anyway. Be it old nazis like Eichmann or newer ones like Zschäpe.
Post edited January 14, 2012 by Protoss
Posted January 14, 2012
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Protoss: That's true, the swastika is censored here, but not if used in a scientific context or such as art. For video games, the censorship is not by government, but by the video game producers. Theoretically they would be able to import most stuff and sell it, but can't advertise it on places that minors can access.

The big issue here is that our politicians are too dumb to understand that video games ARE art.

Oh yes, and our government is big in supporting nazis anyway. Be it old nazis like Eichmann or newer ones like Zschäpe.
That can't advertise where minors can access it seems pretty bad if I'm understanding it right. Such as that it couldn't be sold on Steam as minors can access that?

As for the links...can't read German.
Posted January 14, 2012
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Protoss: That's true, the swastika is censored here, but not if used in a scientific context or such as art. For video games, the censorship is not by government, but by the video game producers. Theoretically they would be able to import most stuff and sell it, but can't advertise it on places that minors can access.

The big issue here is that our politicians are too dumb to understand that video games ARE art.

Oh yes, and our government is big in supporting nazis anyway. Be it old nazis like Eichmann or newer ones like Zschäpe.
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Immoli: That can't advertise where minors can access it seems pretty bad if I'm understanding it right. Such as that it couldn't be sold on Steam as minors can access that?

As for the links...can't read German.
That's what really pisses me off at Steam. About 10-20 percent of the games must be gifted from abroad because it would be censored here. I mean, I'm adult and they can clearly see it so why can't they just give me uncensored stuff?
Posted January 14, 2012
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Protoss: i.e. governmental censorship - that was outlawed for good reason in my country after the last world war.
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Immoli: Bit off topic, but I had heard that there is government censorship in Germany. Specifically, the Nazi symbol and some video games.
SimonG and I traded some thoughts on that topic which you might find interesting:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/dont_check_asian_when_applying_for_college/page2
Posted January 14, 2012
Actually I'm never sure if people should be held responsible in Germany for running amok. I mean, they learnt in video games that people who get shot just sit down on the floor and shake their heads. How are they supposed to know people actually can die from that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alIBAUO_CUM
Posted January 14, 2012
I'm very glad you guys are outright coming out and saying SOPA and PIPA are bad, bad ideas. Being a US Citizen and hearing about these bills just riles me so much and shows how corporate interests that can't adapt to changing culture instead try to control the rest of the world. I would definitely be in support of GOG being blacked-out in protest - at this point anything we can do to get more attention is a good thing.

Now if only both my Senators could actually reason out why this is a bad idea, but I guess that's too much to ask of American politicians...
Posted January 14, 2012
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ng: There is no democracy in this world since after ancient Greece (and my country is far from being any different). My only hope that the European people may still live in some peace in spite of any corruption among those in power. :-(
What makes you think ancient Greece was some great place? Athens' "democracy" was rule by the fickle mob and the demagogues who controlled them while Sparta was a militaristic dictatorship run on slaves and both were ruthless, brutal, and arrogant. As many and intransigent as the problems in quite a number of modern democracies are, they are a huge improvement as compared to ancient Athens.
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DarrkPhoenix: Like Leahy's statement about "delaying" the DNS blocking, Lamar's statement is also pretty meaningless.
Not really, obviously we will have to wait until the new language of the bill is revealed, but I don't think that site quite has the interpretation of the paragraph right.

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DarrkPhoenix: On the bright side, the public outcry does seem to be eroding a fair amount of support for SOPA/PIPA, with even some of the sponsors now backing off and saying more time should be taken to fully consider the bills and their consequences if passed. With the support eroding there's a good chance there won't be enough votes to bring cloture in the face of Sen. Wyden's and Sen. Issa's promise to filibuster PIPA.
Maybe. I wouldn't get my hopes up though. I'd rather be wrong and very pleasantly surprised that PIPA/SOPA get defeated. :) I do think SOPA in its current form will be beaten. What that means as to what does get passed and when, I'm less sure.
Post edited January 14, 2012 by crazy_dave
Posted January 14, 2012
Contacting representatives in this country is a pointless endeavor. Some intern will answer your call and read from a script, or they'll read your email or letter and circular file it. If you're "lucky" and I use lucky in the loosest possible sense of the word, you'll get a form letter from that intern and get stuck on the mailing list for that Congresscritter.

The only people that these 'representatives' care about are the ones that donate to their campaign funds, IMO. That's it. They don't care about the unwashed masses that they are supposed to represent. You want them to "listen"? Tell 'em you donated to their opponent's campaign fund and why you did.

Every single one of these talking heads should be forced to wear patches on their clothing ala Nascar that are proportionate to the amount of money the various corporations donate to 'em.
Post edited January 14, 2012 by Fomalhaut30
Posted January 14, 2012
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crazy_dave: What makes you think ancient Greece was some great place? Athens' "democracy" was rule by the fickle mob and the demagogues who controlled them while Sparta was a militaristic dictatorship run on slaves and both were ruthless, brutal, and arrogant. As many and intransigent as the problems in quite a number of modern democracies are, they are a huge improvement as compared to ancient Athens.
It wasn't perfect by any means but it was the first deliberate _attempt_ at democracy despite that the world itself wasn't so "civilized" back then (slavery and constant wars). But why do you think it's better nowadays? It's the same slavery (if not worse, the slave drivers have many more new tricks these days, the victims will never consider themselves slaves), the same corrupt morons have the power. At least many of those ancient demagogues had some decency and principles unlike our dearest ones.
Of course I'll never know for sure because I'll never feel it like it was in the ancient times. But what I really like about the ancients the life wasn't so complicated. If you were a slave you knew who you were, and your leader would think twice before betraying your expectations if you were a citizen.
Posted January 14, 2012
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ng: It wasn't perfect by any means but it was the first deliberate _attempt_ at democracy despite that the world itself wasn't so "civilized" back then (slavery and constant wars). But why do you think it's better nowadays? It's the same slavery (if not worse, the slave drivers have many more new tricks these days, the victims will never consider themselves slaves), the same corrupt morons have the power. At least many of those ancient demagogues had some decency and principles unlike our dearest ones.
Of course I'll never know for sure because I'll never feel it like it was in the ancient times. But what I really like about the ancients the life wasn't so complicated. If you were a slave you knew who you were, and your leader would think twice before betraying your expectations if you were a citizen.
Of course I give them credit for the first attempt at Democracy, but imperfect doesn't even begin to describe it. Unfortunately Wikipedia in its article on Criticism of Athenian Democracy doesn't have anywhere near a complete accounting (especially what they did to Melos and almost did to another island in a similar situation but recalled the fleet in the nick of time), but it's a start when going through Athenian actions pre- and during Peloponnesian war. Athens was the first democracy and they were the first imperial democracy as well. They were a real set of bastards and only rivaled in their brutality and arrogance by the Spartans (and it's unclear who was actually worse) - I'm not talking about judging them through a modern lens either which can be unfair, but by the judgements of the other city states and indeed even their own citizens some of whom were executed or banished for speaking out against atrocities leveled by Athens (or just because the Athenians felt like it at the time, they were fickle like that) - Socrates is the most famous example, but there were others. As Adlai Stevenson said: My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. In Athens, political unpopularity meant banishment or death. The list goes on. Long story short: decency and principles would be words most of those demagogues would have had to look up in a dictionary.
Post edited January 14, 2012 by crazy_dave
Posted January 14, 2012
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eilenbeb: First of all, this needs more publicity. I didn't hear about this until checking GOG for updates, and by looking at the dates it's nothing new. I'm hoping the net-companies are flying banners about this on their homepages. At any rate, there hasn't been any discussion about these bills in the coffee shops here in town. No one seems to know about them.
With companies like Google and Youtube on our side, it should be possible to get the bad news out to the masses. If we could convince just these two companies to put anti-SOPA/PIPA banners on the front pages of their websites, it would reach millions. However, I don't see any banners now. Perhaps we should email them?

Kay
Posted January 14, 2012
Thanks GOG for taking a stance on this :)
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General discussion (archive)GOG.com Joins Opposition to SOPA & PIPA(243 posts)(243 posts)
(243 posts)