with SOPA the game development community and the whole world of internet is death

SOPA is a proposal that if turned to a rule can put freedom and our jobs in danger.
http://iqu.com/blog/sopa-the-death-of-the-games-community

 

SOPA.....

A law that only benefits corporations and the rich, while cutting innovation and creativity for the growing industry.

SOPA's idiocracy is under the pretense of "piracy protection" when they have already failed in discouraging piracy by going for Digital Rights Management, Constant online activation and increased software prices, and now SOPA is one step too far. Their own actions will eventually be their undoing when decent people have to resort to pirated software.

 

If the australian government dose SOPA then i will personaly go and spray words into the grass on parliment houses roof

 

There is grass on the Australian Parliment house roof??

 

Yep its super groovy and fun to roll down(its like a hill)

 

It's not even good for corps and it's the reason that big companies are against it too.
it's good for only one thing and it's intended reason which is censorship.

See these
http://www.mozilla.org/sopa/
http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2012/01/05/epic-games-doesnt-support-sopa-in-its-current-form/
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...d-microsoft-pull-back-on-supporting-sopa.aspx

but we should try to push this more forward. As developers we should have our voices heard. I don't know if unity technologies is big enough to be important or not and i don't know if it's possible for these danish guys to have loud voices in US or not but if it can help, why should not they say that SOPA is just SOPA (SOPA=trash in swedish language).

 

hmmmm... (imagines how it must look like....) Wow... Australian architectural advancements!

 

EA was recently sued (but won) because they included a helicopter that looked exactly like a real-life heli, but didn't pay royalties. (Negotiations broke down.) The companies sued them for using the likeness, but lost the suit.

Had SOPA been in effect, any EA site that showed this heli in a screenshot or video would have been shut down immediately, without proof, and without a court hearing. Any site showing screenshots of the game would also have been shut down, including major sites like Amazon. The incalculable damage is mind-boggling.

Anyone with any sense should be proclaiming against it.

 

Actualy that dose kind of look like it

 

Actually not so sure about that. Although I am all against SOPA, it is my understanding that SOPA is mainly about shutting down websites that are hosted outside of the United States.

US companies already can get the government to shut down web sites either hosted or managed by US entities, although it must go through court. The "goal" of SOPA is that, since you can’t just go to China or Sweden and tell them to take down a pirate website, that then you should be able to just take those foreign websites out of the web by removing them from every American DNS server.

This can definitively be abused; worse, it can be used by domestic companies to eliminate foreign competition under the guise of "protecting their IP." But the worst part is the potential repercussions to other countries. In a "perfect world", this would only affect Americans. However the world is not perfect and DNS changes have a tendency to propagate world-wide. We already have had a few hiccups due to Chinese DNS servers that do this propagating over the world (and given their practice the world actively attempts to avoid any spreading of Chinese DNS data.) No matter how badly a WB thinks the latest Batman game is being pirated from Sweden, local law should never give them the power to kill a Sweden site to the entire world, and at best US law should only somehow filter the site from being seen inside the US.

Just to be clear: I don’t agree with this law at all, but it's good, when opposing this kind of stuff, to understand the real goals and non-conspiracy-theoryish consequences. US senators won’t care about theories like "but the companies may abuse the power to kill the small guy", they may care about global implications and overstepping their bounds, though, as it may cause a huge international incident.

 

Is there a place we can vote against this?

 

If by WB you meen warner brothers, they cant talk aparently they stole piracy protection software and never paid for it

 

Not that it would actually mean anything. You can mail senators and let them know about your oposition to the bill. Thats the only "vote" that counts. Enough emails (inteligent not ranty) and senators realize that pursuing it would result in career suicide. Unforutnately companies in favor have tossed a lot of money in lobbying that they may feel its still worth to still make it pass and just retire afterwards...

THAT is something I dont get... why is Lobbying even legal.... ugh...

 

mail your local mp

 

It's not much, but: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitio...eaten-diminish-free-flow-information/g3W1BscR

 

take a look at the link that i sent above. and now here
http://www.mozilla.org/sopa/
You can call your senator.
also there is a website called www.avaaz.org which is for different people powered movements all over the world. they had a campaign about SOPA but i don't know if it exists yet or not.

 

oh and share these links on the net and also contact representatives of SONY/NINTENDO?MICROSOFT and EA to vote against it. it seems that epic and activision are the only important gaming figures which talked against it.

 

The death of game development communities ?
Death of internet ?
No offense buddy, but can you be more sensasionalistic than that, Ashkan ?

I don't have the whole view on SOPA yet, so I won't voice any alarmist opinion about it, but clearly we all have to admit that something must be done to eradicate piracy. Being it good or bad, a government controlled solution had to come up one day, just like the way real life law enforcing issues are treated. Self justice and local militias never worked for a reason.

Also, game development communities won't be threatened at all, until they blatantly copy paste retail games assets. But these were already flamed to death by users themselves, so nothing new, they'll just be hunted by different people.

What I'm more worried about is the international authority United States are getting there. The copyright-sueing idiocy madness stayed in America for now, but it seems like this bill would spread it worldwide ... EDGE-like fiascos are going to spread like zombies if this happens ....


edit: I understand the overly agressive nature of the bill, but aren't there Cease Desist procedures to respect before shutting down a site ?

 

Oh this one is good too: http://publicknowledge.org/e-parasite-stop-online-piracy-act?gclid=CP-PtJ3fxa0CFaIRNAod20Ae_w

fill out the form and it will automatically send a piece of mail to your local congressperson with your name and all that jazz.

 

hello de-SOPA, bye bye SOPA: http://bit.ly/w5rSJd

they don't understand how the internet works, they are simply in the past.

 

Dear n0mad
The title is not mine and is the title of the blog post by IQU's CEO. Read the post and then you might understand why it harms all of us. it harms internet freedom more and US's power would be uncontrollable but it's even bad for US resident.

if all indies don't release their content for the fier of SOPA and even people don't create many of their awesome ideas cause of SOPA then isn't it death?
Read more about it. using it someone can claim and shutdown really easily.

 

Here's everything you need to know about SOPA link

 

Thanks for the links, but i think molotovs are still the best way! jk.

 

oh and SOPA is not effective at all.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/desopa/

 

Does this effect UK? or is it just americans being silly? :3 /ridi

jokes aside,

 

So, I can't take a real helicopter now for my model game, because of SOPA and the other things out there?



By the way, my contribution: Internet is like air, it is (and should remain) free, even to the "bad people" out there. The air can be polluted but it still free, anybody can use it, anybody can continue living with it.


This are some links:

* Google tweet on 15 Dic 2011: https://twitter.com/#!/google/status/147369727440859136
* http://keepthewebopen.com/sopa
* http://americancensorship.org/
* https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
* http://www.worldofends.com/

 

Ok no problem
I'll document myself about the bill, thanks for the links !

 

ahh

 

Nice video from TotalBiscuit
I still don't get the alarmist tone from everywhere. Whatever the bill makes, if it's hurting liberty (piracy not included), it will never last long. Especially if it's international.
It's been proven dozens of times with similar actions, people will rage so much all over the world that it will be modified, even post-vote.
This bill is a fail obviously, but taking the positive in it is that all this bag of mixed law attempts and people contestations will ultimately lead to a common worldwide agreement which will stop piracy without hurting liberty.
It just takes a lot of time and refinement, but if we are clean we don't have to be so worried imho.
Just to keep fighting against power abuse and contest calmly.

 

It is just Americans being silly, but still can affect the UK. For one, it can affect any UK site that relies on heavy US traffic for its profit, if said site is even thought to host piracy.

As I mention, DNS changes also may propagate out of the US and affect other countries DNS.

Finally, there are trade agreements between countries that attempt to keep IP protection at an “even field” so once approved in the US, other countries may feel they HAVE to approve similar laws to retain trade agreements with the US.

Heck, even with the thing not passed, Spain has been getting some heat by the US for not approving a similar law.

 

You still can, just use it as an inspiration instead of directly copy pasting it. It's copy pasting that isn't ok. And it's never been, anyway ;-)

 

I think piracy exist because some people are poor, but you see sometimes people with good economy also use piracy... so it not only is about not having money for get the original (in my case it was almost all my life, now that I have work and have a better life than my parents).

The problem with poor people is that they really can't afford buy some things... and I think it is good that all the people have some type of access to such assets (for example a shoe that is like a nike one)... why is good? because people that has a live should life.


Why this happen to people that has money? simple, because buy a pirate is best... you know now games do more profit than movies... but a ticket for a movie is like 10? and a game is like 70?



The problem with piracy... is more deep that putting stupid laws... because is a problem about economy and economy is something regulated by government so, in other words, is a output of their faults... but they are trying to fixit somewhere else.

 

I agree that we really can't blame poor people to pirate. I mean it. But the real problem is, as you said, normal and rich people do pirate. I did meet some people who earned 40000+ $ / year, but were pirating, just because it was easy.
It's just insulting, it's like someone comes at you with gold rings all over his fingers, but says "I like your work so I'll use it, but won't pay you, nope." So something clearly must be done.
A solution would be to still have restricting international laws, meanwhile being able to find a way to adjust the price of a game to its country average revenue level. I'm not sure the Appstore is doing that for example. It's completely stupid to ask for the same price either in a rich country or a poor one.
(example, I don't see mexicans having the same budget as Canada ...)

 

So, it should be easy to buy... I always though about when in the "metro" see the people that sell CD copy of music, what will happen if music vendors, decide give them original CDs and let them sell low, because they are doing it? the major company wins money, the little "pirates" that facilitate for rich and good people will also win. They are only "pirates" because they don't are in the production line that they use.

But you know, this type of work level is something that they are not after.

I don't know if I explained it OK.


I still think that piracy is a fault of government not a fault of people.

 

@tyoc213, now you are going into a bigger topic. Piracy has little to do with poverty. To be honest, the people that are poor enough to justify piracy tend to be also so poor they can’t afford a computer.

The proudest pirates I ever known are also some of the wealthiest people I know. It seems there is a strange though going in their heads that because it's just a "digital copy" and not a physical manufactured product; they are not obliged to pay for the product.

I don’t think pricing is a deal, also, a movie ticket for 10 bucks only gets you one chair, for one showing. You want to go with some one? That’s 20. Want to do that twice? That's 40, etc. etc. A game may be worth 70 at launch for consoles, but that’s a price you pay for ownership.

Also, you have people pirating 99c games. These are people that own $700 phones, and although they may only had paid $200, they tied themselves to pay over 100 a month for cellphone service for the next two years. These are not poor people, it's people that somehow are programmed to think that paying for software is something only stupid people do.

I do agree there are a few cases that pirate based off money, but it's nowhere near the majority of the pirates.

The worst part is that these are the same people that seem to think advertisement is evil, and go out of their way to block ad banners on free games.

These players are not players you will get back with any law, though, nor with any DRMs. The problem is not how to stop these pirates but how to stop the culture from spreading further, how to avoid an even larger percentage of the next generation from thinking that only idiots pay for software?

I have no answer for that, but a good start is by making the acquisition of software and digital media easier than the piracy. This is what happened with music. To be honest, music is nowhere nearly as heavily pirated as movies and games these days, mainly because iTunes and Amazon MP3 are easier to get than hunting down for the piracy.

Movie studios are still fighting the digital distribution of movies because they fear losing the control they currently hold. Same goes for TV shows. And then there are the cable companies. All these forces want to prevent the iTunification of movies and broadcast. This forces them to retain the status quo and therefore make piracy the easy option for you to acquire your digital media.

Steam has helped a lot make pc software profitable, and the same goes for the App Store in the iPhone and Mac. I think the main reason it's not as true in Android is because way too many Android owners got their phones as dumb phone replacements and don’t care for apps or web. They just want to make calls and all the guy at the Verizon store would offer them were these touch screen phones. But on-device, built in app stores, definitively are a great direction to make software acquisition easier and make newer generations think that paying for digital media IS the right thing to do.

Movie and TV makers need to stop resisting the change and start embracing digital distribution.

 

@Tyoc213 : Yes, this metro market is a good example. The whole problem of price adjustment lies within the fact that we can't ensure normal/rich people won't abuse it (just like we see with social security). This demands another layer of control authority, which can cost a lot in the end.
Culture accessibility is a very complex problem, it won't solve itself quickly, but I'm pretty confident that thanks to the accessibility monster that is internet, it will solve one day.

@Tharsman : that was a very clear and intelligent post, gratz ;-)

 

Such a weird perspective! SOPA is about control - governments always want more control. SOPA hurts big corporations and the rich. It hurts Google, Wikipedia, Youttube, etc, and it also hurts you and me. But it protects a few specific groups, legacies of old world media, that are afraid of the changes in the world.

Gigi.

 

BTW: this is another option I personally support but think companies fear to even try:

Poison the piracy channals.

Back in the early 2000, I knew this guy who loved piracy. One day I found him buying games at an EB Games store. I was confused and asked him why was he doing it. His answer: every copy of the game he wanted and downloaded off his usual sources were loaded with viruses and trojans.

Maybe places like Pirate Bay have gotten good at curating piracy, removing the virus infested stuff fast, but should somehow people start thinking that its too easy to get your computer destroyed by viruses if you go looking for piracy, perhaps way fewer people would do it.

Not sure what the legal repercusions of malware being traceable back to the content owners would be, though.

 

Nice post, tharsman.

 

Goals don't matter. The law will be used to its fullest extent, and these 'conspiracy theories' aren't that far off the mark. I wish they were.

 

Goals matter when you want to sit down and have a dialog with the involved parties. I don’t think the theories are far off the mark either, but having an argument over them with politicians is fruitless.

You have a better chance at being listened to by actually sticking to real technical international implications and keeping the theme around the original set of goals.

 

But there where no geeks or people from internet, in one video link provided the author says that a various of the people discussing it know nothing about the implications or what they are talking about (they don't know internet and the implications)... but they will still continue "debating"... and supporting what they think is good.


By the way, returning to on-topic, how exactly it affects game dev?

 

"Sopa" = "soup" in my language. lol

 

If becomes a rule then effectively it can shutdown any game that you make if someone says it's a violation of his rights. it's even stupid at this time cause you can not use name/model like a real car and even the model of MJ in your basketball game but it can become worse. imagine that you made a game with a head as a character and some coins are in it to eat too and then you'll be jailed for violating pacman laws you'll not create all of your ideas anymore and any design could not be improved by others and ...
also imagine steam being shutted down cause someone posted a review on a game which some one think that is a copyright violation. even the rule adds inappropreate content to copyright violation. it's stupid.

I agree on piracy matter that you guys said. also in some countries like Iran sanctions don't allow companies to sell their software here. so people have no other option. in some countries like china and russia it's more about having the ability to buy for most people but those who have the option to buy don't buy too. cause when more than %90 of people can not buy it and use piracy then it will become culture. i think the solution is changing the culture in many countries but in many others having flexible prices can help. something like student edition. it can be priced as the value of countries money and ... for example buying unity for $1500 was not easy at all for us but in US it's much easier. here programmers are paid about $5 to $25 there between $50 to $150. can you see the difference?

But SOPA is not the answer.

 

oh and we have unity licenses but we bought when the company was in europe. i know few other developers that want to buy but unity had a high price so they bought leadwerks which was about $200. I am sure that if we could open an office for UT here and provide support. per sit licenses could be easily sold with a price of $500 to most real developers. We don't have many developers of games here but with that price the full potensial could be used.

 

If the companies would have started a anti-piracy hearts minds campaign instead of being an advocate of pushing DRMs in games, videos and music, SOPA might not exist in the first place at all. A number of people I know who pirate games often lament the excuse of being poor, but rather the truth is the ignorance that they do not know how Piracy hurts companies, and also for the fact that the legal software is punishing the consumers more than the pirates.

It seemed to be one-sided where there is a distinct seperation between the pirates and the distributors when piracy started becoming popular. The companies just slapped on restriction rights towards their software without even questioning why pirates steal their stuff, and when these restrictions hurt the customers while the pirates get a free clean version scot-free, thus allowing more people to jump over towards piracy. It's hard to see when you've purchased a kitchen oven and have to connect to the oven company database daily in order to use it when pirates could just get it free and with no sort of restrictions.

Indie games are moving to the right direction, some offered no sort of DRMs whatsoever, and even allowing people to state their own terms of pricing. SOPA would eventually destroy that small miracle of ethical progression and the trust between a developer and a consumer.

 

The reason for piracy is the industry being plain stupid...

Movies:
Firstly I dont want to support 20th century if possible at all. I have a personal vendetta versus Murdoch and his media empire. Secondly I think the industry has gone completely wrong. Little case study:

I want to watch a fairly recent movie, 2011, on my tv.
Case 1: I look for a download link for a 720p or 1020p on rapidshare/megaupload/etc. and download the movie and I am ready to go in about 5-10mins (50mbit download).
Case 2: I put on clothes, walk to blockbusters (about 5-7mins) get a movie for maybe 5 pounds (but not blueray, i dont have a blueray drive) and watch it at home. Next day I have to get up again and walk there to bring the movie back or pay a penalty fee.

You tell me, which one is more convenient? I am not a 'passionate' pirate. But most movies are crap anyway, so I dont see why I would have to spend about $25 (now in the UK) for a cinema ticket to see a sh*t movie. The price is simply ridiculous! If cinemas and movies would make themselves more attractive I would be the first one to go several times a week because I love cinemas!

A similar story for games. More and more games dont release demos nowadays. There is no way you can actually tell if you like the game or not. I'm not going to go into the next store and buy myself a $70 game in the hope its good! I download it first and if I like it I go and buy it. All the games I play regularly I have bought. None are pirated.

Also can anybody explain why a digital version for the kindle costs more than the paper version??? This shows me that the industry is just plain stupid.

I would like SOPA to pass so the world finally realizes how the US shoves their laws in the faces of the world and tries to be the world police once again. I'm a Swiss citizen and the US is now asking to see my police records if I want to enter the US. WTF? Do we see their police records? No. The US is becoming a police state. A lot worse than China. Heck here people are comparably free! You want to drive on the wrong side of the road? Go for it. You want to spit in the street? You are welcome to. Speeding? Who cares.. (I live in China atm) US is dead for me. A country I do not want to go to ever again, not even as a tourist. They deserve SOPA.

 

You are verry lucky with your internet this is what happens to me Begin downloading 1080p film 5 hours later watch it

Politics is madness to me i dont get why there is not just a "voting saturday" or something were is you want you can vote, if it gets more votes then not then it is passed just have it not compusary so if people dont care about it they dont have to vote. For important stuff just have like a quarterly vote thats compusary with important stuff sounds good to me i dont realy like the way some dumb parliament gets to decide what go's when i bet none of them have had anything todo with the gaming world.

 

Thats more or less how it works in Switzerland. It's called a direct democracy. Unfortunately corrupt governments like the US, UK, etc. prefer lobbying and making money. Lobbying exists in Switzerland as well as corruption but the difference is that in the end the people get to vote.

 

Australia is the worst this is a quote of our primeminister: "There will be no carbon tax under the government i leed" folowed by this once she won the election becase of that : "its time to start putting a price on carbon" followed by a carbon tax that mean petroll just went up in price to pay it