Very happy to see this. It was honestly tearing me up that Nintendo was supporting such a horrible piece of legislation.

The bill would not hurt Nintendo itself, I think they want to avoid the wrath of criminal groups like Anonymous since they oppose it and attack anybody who disagrees with them. SOPA is not as bad as some people online are making it out to be. I am not saying it's flawless though, and Nintendo supporting or not supporting it won't really impact the chances of it being passed. It's a good bill, and not one that any company has to worry about unless they are hosting illegal content.

When I heard that Nintendo was supporting SOPA, I wasn't surprised. Nintendo has spent millions upon millions of dollars trying to prevent piracy of their products, going as far as using a less ideal media format just to make sure their games are not illegally distributed. Dropping out is far more surprising since Nintendo is usually a stubborn company that goes through with their plans.

It's been pointed out elsewhere that while Nintendo may not be officially supporting the bill anymore, the Electronic Software Association, which Nintendo is a member of, still supports it.

I really haven't seen much coverage of SOPA on gaming sites which is a bit surprising considering how it would affect the gaming sites. Pretty much every single gaming site has something on the site that has some copyright material it is just that the holders of said material doesn't go after them right now. There is ways to go about combating piracy  but SOPA is a blanket bill which affects a ton of things that aren't really exactly about piracy. Point being that movements that use the internet as a meeting point for other things could be shut down and that could make organising things could take a while to get off the ground. I heard that SOPA has been stopped again but this is the 3rd time it has gone through congress.I doubt it will stop any time soon.

Nintendo has made a good decision today. Hopefully the other game companies will follow suit.

*Facepalm* Please stop embarrassing yourself TJ you pot plant.

Go watch this video. The conflict of interests and hyprocsy is astounding.

SOPA would allow the companies with the largest arsenals of copyrighted content and legal departments to declare open war on the internet using the government as a weapon. It is anti-competitive, anti-innovation, designed to oppresse free speech and businesses smaller than the biggest conglomerates. No due process, almost no bar to cross when it comes to the quantity or quality of evidence means sites can be shut down based on the word of the accuser before a rebuttal can even be formed. Even the discussion of the implications of piracy can be construed to be promoting it under SOPA, something the NWR forums has discussed before. NWR "owns" all the posts here and should a company dislike NWR from a bad review, they can use those posts or any number of other "justifications" to close NWR.

Video reviews? gone. Lets Plays? gone. Home videos? Not on this net if it contains a recognisable product. Reviews? Don't give a low one displeasing the company. Modding your console to play games from other regions? Gone. Home brew and jail breaking? HA! Whistle blowing websites? "Copyrighted". Want to set up a competing web company? Hell NO. The act of linking would become a crime.

SOPA would make the current and ongoing patent war a side show. SOPA is a barefaced power play to control the internet which only the most authoritative governments have tried. The USA would join the likes of North Korea, China, Iran, Syria. It's not even under the guises of a law there to protect you under public security, but on the behest of corporations to protect their profits currently running at record highs.

SOPA is not about piracy, not about justice, law, or common sense. It's about power and control. One of Humanity's greatest invention faces destruction from psychopathic level of greed and a government that contains the worse of humanity basking in willful ignorance.

TJ SOPA doesn't affect Nintendo in a direct way but in an indirect way. As it stands now as long as a company doesn't go after a site for copyright material directly then the content on that site would stay up. Now with that in mind if you think about gaming sites most of the content on the sites are video and screenshots of a companies games. All that stuff is up there now because game companies don't go after it.If SOPA happens to pass the companies won't even have a say in the matter and the sites will be effectively shut down with all that content and pretty much any hype for any Nintendo games will be gone thus affecting their bottom line because of lack of awareness. That's just one example I can come up with that this bill will affect.

I also saw a video a few weeks back about the bill which is very informative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM&feature=channel_video_title

Also the video that oohhboy linked to is a great watch and I think the second video I watched on the SOPA bill and how it affects all of us.

This is why I like Nintendo and why I hate Sony. Nintendo has enough sense to back out of something which is morally reprehensible; Sony on the other hand...

The article reads like Sony did back out as well. That probably means SCEA though, no way Sony Music would not support that bill. They're a key figure in the RIAA and MPAA, the driving forces behind all of these stupid laws.

For a speech on how politicians can allow terrible laws like this to pass try Cory Doctorow's latest from the 27C3: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html. Computers simply don't work like the other things politicians are used to.

Pretty sure nintendo's still supporting of the bill, just they asked their names to be removed because of the threat made by Anonymous. 

Good! SOPA brakes the DNS which essentially breaks the Internet.

Thank you for that video KDR 11K.

It offers stunning insight and lays bare the fight beyond SOPA and PIPA. It now makes sense to a certain degree as to why law makers are so ignorant to the issues at hand. Why they continually try to pass increasingly oppressive and embarrassing laws that have no function in reality.

I would be happy to see Nintendo attacked over their association with SOPA via the ESA. Hell, I would do it myself if I had the technical know how. I would gladly suffer the inconvenice of the service outage if it meant Nintendo would never consider such absurdity ever again. But then attacking the ESA would be a much better first target.

Now there is other law called NDAA, but that is outside the purview of this site.

The only problem and something some people are stilling saying Nintendo and Sony are still supporting the bill is the ESA is still a supporter which Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo among thirty some odd US developers are a member of. (The ESA organizes E3 and help legally defend the game industry in the US.)

But there is a sign that the ESA may also back out: EA, Nintendo and Sony have all removed their active support of the bill and they are some of the bigger companies in the ESA. (Microsoft never really supported it, but they are also memebers of the ESA.)

Right. Because internet vigilantes are really todays superheroes and breaking the law by attacking massive corporations makes everything better.

I'm not a SOPA supporter, but surely there are better ways to go about sinking the bill than resorting to cyber-terrorism.

I didn't know Nintendo was supporting that horrible piece of legislation.  It's embarrassing that bills that are written entirely by the major corporations that they're aimed to help, even if they're bad for the majority of people, are even considered by congress.

At least Nintendo isn't as slimey of a company as GoDaddy, who conveniently had a bug that stopped people from transferring domains away from them. 

Would you rather people buy or improvise weapons and start opening up on people to get a point across? So called Cyber-terrorism doesn't injure or kill people, it is direct, surgical in nature. There will be blowback with bills like this, I rather have that blowback be of the virtual kind that hits where it matters, to their bottom line than at a barrel of a gun in the hands of desperate people.

It's asinine that they even supported this in the first place. It required a very real threat against Sony for them to even reconsider. We, the people are suppose to be the ones writing laws for the betterment of all, not soulless corporations to blacken a ledger. It has come to Cyber-terrorism because so far nothing else has worked. It should have been thrown out the moment it hit the desk let alone go through multiple committees, countless man hours spent on both sides, with millions of dollars squandered to do something that has no basis in reality and would destroy the way of life as we know it for the worse.

Illogical trains of thought allowed absurdities like people to be held without due process, representation or charge till the very concept of terrorism is defeated to be enshrined in law(NDAA). Crap like this is part of a much greater conflict and is well beyond the scope of this site. KDR's video is just a taste of it.

thank goodness.  way to go, Nintendo!! I will continue to buy your products!!

... now, about those paid DLC plans? >=(

Not to mention that it will affect the companies the bill will apparently support and protect. Sites like Hulu.com, which officially distributes video content from third parties, would be gone. ALL of YouTube would be destroyed, because everyone from 13 year olds that upload Justin Bieber karaoke videos to companies that show off their content from TV shows and such would be sued and threatened. Even Gametrailers.com, a site DEVOTED to just video content would be affected. How would movie companies distribute their trailers?

What a lot of people in congress fail to realize is that yes, there is online piracy, and it HAS affected a good chunk of the industry. BUT that's very small. Online has helped companies grow. You can easily promote and distribute your content to a mass audience. Take the new My Little Pony TV show, for example. That's a show that was discovered online. The word of mouth quickly spread and the show became extremely popular, reaching mainstream appeal and generating revenue for Hasbro and Discovery communications. Had it not been for the online communities supporting the show, it would have flopped badly.

And as it has been mentioned before, the problem is how out of control this would get. They HAVE tried to sue people over a faint song being used in the background. A FAINT SONG USED IN THE BACKGROUND. As in, someone walked by with a radio and you heard the first few notes of a song. If SOPA passes that would give companies the RIGHT to sue families over stupid stuff.

So SOPA will affect online communities, the companies it will supposedly support and the average online user. There is NOTHING good about it, despite how pretty some may paint it.

And to clear some confusion, yes Sony dropped out of SOPA support.

SCEA dropped out of SOPA

Sony/BMG - Sony Music - Sony Pictures, etc etc
all the music and movie related stuff was still supporting it last I checked (sometime last night)

Brilliant retort. I'm not going to bother quoting the whole thing.

Pedro, please explain how Hulu (for example) would be affected? All of the content on that site is uploaded by the companies that own the rights to it. Only sites hosting illegally uploaded content would be affected. Most sites that review games would be fine since they get that content from the publishers (unless they are one of those sites that just steal the media from other sites). Sites like IGN, Kotaku, etc. get their pictures and video from the publishers.

I don't know if SOPA will be as bad as people think, bills are ALWAYS over blown. Heath Care Reform is not socialism. So things like this to see the truth is always fuzzy.


Now I do think piracy needs to be fought and fought hard. I respect the art-form that is video-games, movies and music and want people to get paid for the craft.


This is the worst congress ever, it will pass both houses of congress not because bloggers get angry but because simple things can't get passed how will this bill happen.

Given the abuse we have already seen with the DMCA, it's not too far fetched to assume that more corporate power will lead to even more abuse.

Why? It's not a war that can be won. It's just a waste of resources. Instead of demonizing true customers, why don't content creators make their products more valuable and easier to obtain? The idea that the doctrines of physical limitations and scarcity can be forced upon a wholly digital economy is absurd. We're not looking at buying physical things nowadays... we're looking at paying for the rights to use the content that was on that thing. Don't limit what I can do with that content, don't restrict where I can get it, and certainly don't charge more for it. Do those things and you will thrive in this emerging world.

SOPA (and PIP) don't do that. They do the exact opposite. They keep dinosaurs in power by not allowing the game to change. By freezing the playing field so that it cannot evolve or innovate... lest that be harmful to said dinosaurs bottom line.

SOPA is the biggest step backwards in entertainment history. This type of legislation would never even be considered if it wasn't for the mega corporations and their cronies buying congressmen. Nothing will heal the economy like making everyday internet users into criminals...

Please watch KDRs video. It explains very clearly why law makers will continue to fail in perpetuity.

It parallels the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, both of which are failures. In both they are fighting concepts, ideas with physical force. Instead of treating both as a law enforcement issue that are already covered under existing laws, like Murder or intoxication, they elevate these mundane crimes and give themselves powers that violate the very reasons, the very history the country was founded upon. When they invariably fail as reality spits back in their face, they double down, still thinking they didn't fight hard enough and it's the glory days of World War 2 where punching Hilter means you win. The cycle continues. More surveillance, more controls, more checkpoints, drills, security sweeps, color coded alerts, ever smaller "free speech zones".

SOPA and PIPA are part of a war against general computing. When you slap a processor inside something, if you give it the appropriate signals, it does what you want. What companies seek is to have complete control over that processor, what it does, who can use it. The problem is, to borrow from KDR's video, is that the General Processor and the networks they run on have become the wheel. There are processors everywhere and everything is networked. No longer are thing filled with switches and springs, or clockwork. If I was to fly a modern plane these days, I wouldn't be flying the plane, I would be flying the computer and the computer flys the plane for me. The same increasingly applies to cars (with speed/acceleration limiters, ABS, traction control, power steering, differential and soon, self driving cars), radios have processors now instead of crystals. Hearin aids no longer have amplifying circuits, but sound processors that can not only amplify, but enhance hearing.

Imagine trying to outlaw specific functions of a wheel without breaking it. You can't. Imagine instead of dealing with the offender when it comes to speeding like we do now days, you write a law that says wheels cannot go faster than X speed. I don't have to tell you why it's stupid. What happens to wheels not attached to cars?, what if it's a bicycle? What of all the wheels that already exists that must function by going over x speed? Imagine declearing war on the wheel?

I could go on, but please watch KDR's video. It explains it so much better than I can. There is no "The truth is somewhere in the middle South Park BS". There is reality and there is fantasy.
---
From my observations of Americans, they have no idea what socialism means, let alone look it up in a dictionary. As the American media continue to frenzy, soon there will be a point where sharing would be considered "socialism" as the country runs headlong into "Fuck you, got mine".

What we need is a War on Horror. Terror is bad and all, but Horror is even worse. Why aren't we fighting that?

Well, regardless of whether you think Obamacare is socialism, it is unconstitutional (Giving the government the ability to order a private citizen to purchase a desired product.  Good lord, that's one slippery slope.).  Hopefully, the Supreme Court will agree when ruling on it later this year.  By the same token, SOPA and Protect IP are terrible laws that give government a whole new level of control over Free Speech with pretty much no Checks & Balances, and so should be unconstitutional as well.  I hope we won't have to rely on the Supreme Court to handle that matter as well.

Unfortunately, all these companies supposedly "backing out" of supporting these terrible bills aren't really doing so.  They're merely removing their names while allowing the Electronic Software Association (their main lobbying body) to continue lobbying for the bill.  I won't believe these companies have changed their minds in supporting these bills unless we see them actively signed against them.

this thread has gotten too political and im closing it, wait goddamnit im not a moderator....

Whatever anyone's feelings are on Obama, Socialism, or Health Care, this is definitely not the forum to be discussing it. We are now entering an election year so I predict its going to be worse, but try to suppress it please. Try to stick to the video game stuff.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Even if SOPA is defeated now they will rename it and put it back on the table. Blackmail is not the answer either, all that does is make the opposition to the bill look like it's composed of criminals who just don't want the govt to stop their crimes.

The only way to win is to make the politicians truly believe that tampering with the internet in such drastic ways is a terrible idea. And that's not possible (discounting brainwashing here, the cure must not be worse than the disease!).

Banning lobbying would be a first step though, that's just legalized bribery.

That is not even the slightest bit true, and multiple court rulings (including from a conservative udge appointed by Reagan) have ruled it Constitutional. Health care reform is a good thing and I hope the Supreme Court is smart enough to make the right decision.

Lobbying does not need to involve money or gifts or anything, it can be as simple as going to the Congressman and telling them why they should act one way or another.

Updated with language detailing ESA, Sony game division details.

funny thing is: i love talking about politics...on reddit

I don't want to get into politics on here, but Spyke, this is a half-truth.  Sure, multiple courts have ruled the individual mandate to be Constitutional... but multiple court rulings have also declared it to be Unconstitutional.

If you're going to get into a political debate on here*, then you need to be completely honest with your statements.

*Don't get into a political debate on here.

It absolutely is. However, giving the insurance and pharmaceutical companies even more power and business by forcing customers upon them is not. If you want real reform, you need to look toward other first world nations. Don't let industry lobbyists draft your bills... whether it's on healthcare of IP laws.

What part of "no political discussion" do you people not understand? You can talk about SOPA, because that's relevant to gaming and the subject of this article, but anything else is off limits.

An update has come in. ESA still supports SOPA. Statement follows:

Source.

The internet is freedom.  It's anarchy, only safe.  In an anarchaic society there is the risk of "might making right".  With no law to protect you there is nothing to stop anyone from hurting or killing you aside from your own physical resistance.  But the internet has no such problem.  Yeah there are viruses but no one can physically harm you.  You get the freedom of anarchy without any danger.  Even most theft on the internet isn't theft in the typical sense.  While credit card information can be stolen most internet theft is piracy of IP.  But in that case nothing is literally taken from the victim, like it would if someone in the real world stole your possessions.  The damage IP theft does is devaluing your product.  You still have all the IP to sell but huge chunks of your market are taken away because they can get it for "free".  It's like someone leaking a trade secret.  It's the equivalent of blabbing about Coca-Cola's secret recipe.

Because the internet is freedom I figure it is inevitable that it will be taken away at some point.  Now we shouldn't give up and not fight to keep this freedom but I think someday it will be taken away (or willingly given away by a public that doesn't know better).  I don't think my future children will have access to the internet in the same way I do and I feel lucky to have truly lived in its golden age.

No matter what happens we are moving into a different age.  If the internet remains free, IP is worthless.  Music, movies, TV shows, books, videogames - all of that ceases to have any value from a business perspective.  Now some think that that is a good thing, that it will take the corporations out of it and give the art back to the artists.  The thing is that these things take time and money to create.  If businesses aren't doing it anymore, less people are going to do it.  The average person has a mortgage to pay and kids to feed.  They have to spend 40 hours of their week working a job.  They don't have the time and money to create artistic works at the same pace and scale as someone who does that professionally.  In the old days the working class made DICK ALL for art unless they were specifically professional artists because the Aristocracy were the only ones with the money and leisure time to do it for kicks.

So we either get a world where IP is worthless and the internet is free or one where the internet is greatly restricted to a point where it can make IP worth something.  And while one might think that the government truly can't control the internet, do you not rely on your ISP for internet access?  Don't we all rely on computers and operating systems?  If ISP companies and the hardware and software companies are all on board with this (and you know the software companies are; their whole business is IP) then getting ahold of the equipment to even access an unrestricted internet will be incredibly difficult.  Now it won't block everyone out but as long as it blocks the mainstream user, then it will work.

Which future do you want to live in?  We can't have the free internet with all the movies and music and videogames we have now.  Something will change.  I'm in favour of the free internet because I'm all in favour of liberty and freedom, even though as a musician I'm a little bummed out to realize I was born in an era where music is financially worthless and I likely can't make a living doing what I love.  But freedom is more important.  The market changes and products and services can become worthless as history changes.  We didn't outlaw cars to protect the jobs of farriers and horse breeders so we shouldn't outlaw the internet to protect sellers of IP.

Well it doesn't look like the ESA is backing down. So the three console manufacturers and most US developers are still indirectly supporting the bill. (The thing I find funny in this is perennial "bad-guy" publisher Activision/Blizzard isn't a member and I don't think supports the bill, which will be a first time they will not be on the receiving end of hate of something going down in the video game market.)

http://kotaku.com/5872766/the-video-game-industrys-lobbyists-support-sopa-but-they-understand-why-you-might-not

At least that's what the old dinosaurs trying to push things like SOPA and PIPA through think. In reality, IP becomes more important than ever. IP becomes the product. Whereas right now you are sold a DVD or a book, in a digital economy you are sold access to the content itself. Making that access simply and ubiquitous is what will make or break most services. Unfortunately, making sure that such an economy fails is beneficial to institutions like Hollywood and the Record Industry. They make their money off of being middlemen. That may have worked when distribution was a major hurdle, both physically and financially. That's not the case in this brave new world, and that's what scares them. There's still room for corporations to make content and profit off of it, there's just no way to translate over the current system from meatspace... the one that has made entire industries lazy.

A must read open letter sent to the House of Representatives at November the 15 and originally drafted In July 5 2011 by 110 Law professors against SOPA/PIPA. Not a long read at 6 pages, but it is in plain english and it spells out not just why it's bad, but how bad SOPA/PIPA is. Below is the cover letter summarising the document.

If a hundred and ten Professors of Law can't convince you that this bill is not only bad, but is dangerous, get off this planet now, you're clearly not human, you don't belong here and you're not welcome anymore. More often than not, the dangers that SOPA/PIPA carries is understated, not over-blown like some would dismiss out of hand.

---

In related news, Epic games has posted a letter in their forums openly coming out against SOPA despite belonging to the ESA, although not unequivocally. With the PR speak, they are still on the fence, but at least their legs are all on one side now.

You also have lawyers who support stuff like racism.

I'm of the idea that product only has financial value if it has scarcity.  I don't buy air or sunlight because it's free and it's everywhere.  I buy things that are hard or impossible for me to obtain myself.  The reason I don't pirate is entirely because I'm a nice guy.  Or maybe I want the physical item with all the packaging and such.  But I don't NEED to buy your game or your music to get it.  I can essentially reproduce it out of thin air.  It thus has no real financial value because it isn't scarce in any way.  Now, the initially creation of the IP doesn't come from nothing, but once it is out anyone can obtain it for free.  It's like those machines in Star Trek that make food out of nothing.  Once something like that exists, there is no reason to go to the supermarket other than essentially subsidizing the grocer out of the kindness of my heart.

You can sell the access but not with the internet as is.  I can access essentially ANY IP I WANT without paying a dime if it has been released to the public at some point so that someone can leak a copy.  How do you control access to IP while leaving the internet as free and open as it is now?  The best you can charge for is convenience and quality control.

The IP has always been the product.  The phyical media was just how you transferred it around.  I bought the music and then if I burned a copy for my friend he got the music as well, without buying it.

You're not even trying anymore TJ. Really, a South Park equivalency talking point the best you have got. I have seen trolls put in more effort. I have seen kindergardeners have deeper thoughts than that statement while molding cat droppings in the sandbox.

Go chew on this for a while TJ, don't worry, it's right up your alley, you will like it and don't come back until you have something worthwhile to say.

I was merely pointing out that you have lawyers supporting every issue. I don't care if you agree or disagree with me. Form all the petty little insults you want, I couldn't care less since how a stranger on the Internet feels means squat to me.

The value of something is determined by a subset of supply and demand. Scarcity falls into the supply category, but there has to be demand also. For example, what is the value of a dog turd? In a way every dog turd is unique I guess, like a snowflake, but there is no demand for it so even if they are one of a kind there is zero value to it whatsoever.

I should have just said a rock instead of dog turds. Every rock you find on the ground will be different from every other rock in some way, whether it be shape or composition or whatever. But are these rocks valuable just because they are one of a kind?

Scarcity of product for software is dependent on how much it costs for a company to produce x copies for y assumed buyers.  It costs companies something to produce copies of the product on compact disc, and it also costs something for them to provide a source for you to download a copy of the product from legitimately.

You're welcome to assert that you downloading from a torrent doesn't technically cost them either, which is true in the sense that you're not costing them a disc pressing or bandwith, but you are also being entertained for something which legitimate means of ownership have an explicit price to enjoy.  I don't believe in the logic of each pirated copy of a game is a lost $50-60 sale, but I do believe there is a price point for most people where they would gladly pay for a legitimate means of owning it.

As someone whose father used to make copies of Amiga discs and return the bought games the next day for us, I still find the concept of downloading a game and not compensating the makers for their work a bit morally murky.  I personally feel better about waiting until a price is more palpable than full retail.

Can we put a stop on all the pointless name calling and such?

And don't reply to my post with some half-witted justification as to why it was okay for /you/ to name call.  I'm not interested.