The Week's Biggest News Story - SOPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA as its widely known has again dominated the gaming news this week, with hundreds of articles being published both supporting it and condemning it. The bill essentially gives the U.S powers that be the right to issue court orders against websites that they believe have infringed copyright. Its important to realise that this type of legislation has been attempted before, for example there was, and I think still is, a similar bill in Australia but is based more on censoring the entire internet, and also their is the most famous example of internet censorship which is China where the internet has been censored.

You may be thinking why do so many companies and people oppose something that is trying to stop piracy essentially, well this is the problem it isn't, looking again at China you can see by there attempt at internet censorship that it doesn't just effect the pirates it effects everyone. In SOPA's case it has such strong opposition because most people believe that it just won't work, and I am one of them, it won't stop game piracy it will just harm and effect innocent parties.

Bungie oppose SOPA

Some massive names in the gaming industry and some massive online companies have stepped up and opposed the bill, Bungie one of the biggest gaming companies in the work and creators of the Halo series have come out as anti SOPA, Bungie wrote on their website their opinions of the bill "a messy piece of legislation", along with Bungie, Epic Games (Gears of War) Riot Games (League of Legends) and Mojang (Minecraft) have all opposed the highly controversial legislation. Among the internet companies who oppose the legislation are; Google, Facebook, and Twitter, these are some of the biggest names on the internet and some of the most popular sites, with the big names in gaming and online that are now oppose to this deal, and also more that are opposing SOPA everyday, their is a strong opposition to this bill and the power of the opposition is growing, an example of the power growing is the fact Barrack Obama has addressed the issue. If this legislation does get passed it has one hell of an opposition to get though
"Barrack Obama has addressed the issue"

The main problem with SOPA is that the positive effects that it says it will have are not guaranteed and their is a real possibility that it won't work at all, but the side effects that the legislation will have are guaranteed so for this reason I have also oppose SOPA. The most important thing people like you and me have to realise is that we can help stop this, even if its just going to Twitter or Facebook and expressing your views, or going to certain stop SOPA websites and giving them your support it really does help.