I cannot, in good conscience, play Star Trek Online at this current point in time.
At present, the game's publisher,
Perfect World Entertainment, supports the Stop Online Piracy Act through their
membership with the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).
SOPA is a proposed US bill that will try to stem piracy by allowing copyright owners to forcibly shut down URLs that supposedly infringe upon copyrighted materials. It is so vaguely worded that even innocuous items like a person's Let's Play video or a karaoke video of a person singing along to a copyrighted song may become felonies (with punishments more severe than first time drug offenders). In short, current web content protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) may soon garner their creators felony charges.
Why PWE (a publisher that largely publishes MMOs, which relay more heavily on subscriptions and in-game item sales rather than physical box sales) would support such an abhorrent bill, is beyond my understanding. There again, why anyone would try to stop piracy with such ham-fisted cencorship is beyond my understanding as well.
Until PWE explicitly drops their support of SOPA (even regardless to the stance of the ESA), I cannot play, promote, nor patronize this game.
Fore more info:
http://americancensorship.org/http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/06/sopa-list-esa/http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/the-sopabox-defeating-online-piracy-by-destroying-the-internet/
... or just search for SOPA on your search engine of your choice.
PWE_BranFlakes, please add this to your list of feeddback.
Comments
I didn't know PW was supporting this bill. But, yeah, I've heard about the bill through my fav tech radio program-tech news today-and through the EFF's website. The idea of somebody getting a felony charge because of a karaoke video is very abhorrent, so yeah, I probably wouldn't support the bill. That being said, I hope people read this before it gets closed by the moderators.
And to add to that, it's not legislation that's likely to get passed.
(Are we allowed to talk about legislation here?)
I don't fully understand why PWE would support this since my understanding right now would put them at risk from the US Government. If any copyright/IP material is posted on this forum or transited via the game illegally, the US Government can blacklist the site immediately. The owners becomes fully responsible in real time for material posted on user-based content. Hence why social media and youtube could not operate because they wouldn't even be giving the leeway of their "Report Abuse" system.
No, I'm pretty sure that this falls into the category of a political discussion. If you guys want to get up to speed on this particular issue, I recommend visiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.
Doesn't mean people shouldn't know about it.
Right now, there is no definitive statement by PWE or Cryptic that they do support this. It's just conjecture from a Joystiq article. All that article says is that they didn't get a response from PWE. So the best anyone can say is they support it "by proxy" and with so many members being a part of ESA, it's not like they are responsible for the creation of it.
Yeah, true. Plus it would tie the hands of federal judges who should have the ability to discern the intentions of the defendant instead of having to base his decision solely on a federal sentencing guideline.
Well, although they are a Chinese company, they do own games that are played throughout the world, including the U.S. Thus, they would have an interest in the bill because any large company gravitates towards promoting strong protection of their copyrighted material and patented inventions. It's not a question of where or who; it's a question of do they have enough money and patents. If a company has enough money to pay patent lawyers to sue other companies for supposed infringment, you bet your britches they are going to do it.
If(and I say again, if) that bill passes, that means all those fancy forum avatars people be using here has to go. Unless you custom made yours from scratch.
I was about to say this pretty much word-for-word.
This is bogus. PWE nor Cryptic have expressed any support of SOPA whatsoever. This thread needs to be closed to prevent misconceptions.
And by the way, SOPA will only allow copyright holders to file court orders against websites. They still have to be passed through a court of law and no court in the USA would ever send someone to prison for making a karaoke video.
Though it's demmed hard to find anyone out there who'll actually come out against it. Even so, for an amusing take on this issue, brought to you by the guy who did Get Your War On, have a butchers at Get Your Censor On.
The Entertainment Software Association is the principle lobbyist for game developers (Perfect world included). At present, the ESA supports the Stop Online Piracy Act, and unless it's members explicity say otherwise, they are tacitly supporting the bill. After all, don't you think the ESA would be consulting with it's members on this before giving the go ahead to support it? The only reason why some companies and developers are beginning to oppose is because it has begun to receive a lot of bad publicity in the last 4-5 months.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/companies-taking-a-stand-against-piracy-caught-in-sopa-crosshairs/2012/01/12/gIQAQ2qRuP_story.html
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/06/sopa-list-esa/ -list of EFA member companies for and against it
That website is flagged by my internet security program for identity theft. It uses a security license from another website.
You cannot tell me that because one company says something, another company automatically agrees with it. It's like, if I went to Jiffy Lube and put a Jiffy Lube sticker on my windshield, but then they come out and said they hate TRIBBLE people. Just because I have a Jiffy Lube sticker on my windshield and they hate gays doesn't mean I do too.
That list says they haven't responded. They put FOR because the ESA supports it and someone generalized. You can't believe everything you see on the internet. For all you know, the founder and CEO of PWE avidly opposes SOPA and is simply unaware of the statements made by the ESA.
Plus, for someone attempting to argue a point as intellectual as this, it seems like you would at least attempt to use proper grammar.
It would be repealed after a week. Then everyone who voted for it would be kicked out of office the next election.
... why is a political thread being pushed here in front of me? I'm a sucker for these things, I *have* to post in them! If I get in trouble, it's not my fault! :eek:
Right from ESA's website http://www.theesa.com/about/index.asp:
Shape Our Industrys Future
"ESA members are connected within a strong network of industry leaders. The ESA has more than 35 member companies including Microsoft Corporation, Nintendo of America, Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts. Members set the priorities for the associations legislative, anti-piracy and intellectual property initiatives, providing an opportunity to influence issues that affect the entertainment software industry overall, as well as their individual bottom lines."
Read that closely
Don't think of ESA as an association. Think of them as a lawyer/lobbying firm that gets paid on retainer. Meaning, they have set payment agreements with their members based on how much lobbying/litigation they do per month/per year. This can be adjusted as per the amount of lobbying, research, and litigation.
Don't be fooled. The members are setting the priorties. I'm sure they have a meeting every month to collectively set the priorities the ESA will work on for the remainer of the month and year. The CEO of Perfect world and his lawyers, who work alongside the ESA's lawyers to set the legislative priorities of the lobbying firm, are fully aware of ESA's stance on SOFA.
They made the game after all.
That's all well and good, but what about the multiple members of the ESA that have actively opposed the current version of SOPA? You say all of the members have a say in the direction that the ESA takes, what about those members who disagree with the act? What say do they have?
The simple fact is this; PWE has not expressed an opinion in this matter. We cannot infer from one organizations actions that another organization wholeheartedly agrees with it. You won't convince me otherwise until the day PWE makes a formal announcement on the subject.
Keep dreaming. If it gets passed it'll be as quiet as possible until people forget about it. They're not going to let a weapon of corporate terrorism slip through their chubby fingers without an extended and devious fight.
They are the lobbying firm for Perfect World and many other developers. That means PW and other members are setting the legislative agenda for the lobbying firm. Do i need to say anymore? If PW continues to pay them and PW fails to take a public stance on SOFA, that means PW tacitly agrees with it. If PW didn't agree with it, they would have already gone public on it. In other words, by virtue of being a member of the ESA, setting it's agenda with other members, and paying it to represent that agenda, PW is supporting/agreeing with ESA's stance.
Also, you have incorrectly characterized the ESA. They are not simply an organization. They are a lobbying firm that is payed by it's members to litigate and to lobby an agenda that it's members have collectively agreed upon.
What does it mean to tactically agree with someone? :P
You didn't answer my question. What about the multiple members of the ESA that do not support SOPA?
I mischaracterized no one. The ESA is as much an organization as any other group of people. One could classify the mexican mafia as an organization, as well as every religious and political group on the planet. The fact that you don't know the definition of a simple word makes me doubt your credibility to even begin to argue this subject.
You're making all these assumptions and accusations, yet all you back your words up with is more of your own words. As I've said already, the day PWE makes a formal statement on the subject is the day I'll consider your argument. Until then, you're just wrong. Simply, plainly, almost painfully wrong. I'm done with this thread.
Tacit agreement means implied or inferred without direct expression. In other words, PW doesn't need to publicly say they support SOFA or agree with ESA's support of SOFA's promulgation. They already say it indirectly though their membership of ESA which without a doubt implies that they, along with the other developers, have set a legislative agenda, and that they have agreed with ESA on how much to pay them.
Here's the logic:
A= Perfect World B= ESA C= SOPA
A is a member of B. Secondly A, with B, sets an agenda that is pro-C with other members. Lastly, A pays B to to take PRO-C stances. Therefore, A must support C.