House of Reps and Obama kill SOPA

The_J said:

For one day...what's one day?
If someone really can't live a single day without Wikipedia...

Click to expand...

One day is nothing to me, but I'm sure there are people who would really be inconvenienced by it. But the main point is it's unnecessary.

These supporters of SOPA and PIPA are evil. We must crush their spirits, sap their souls, eat the hearts and destroy them utterly without mercy. DEATH!!!

aimeeandbeatles said:

Im worried about misinformation and panic spreading. And people twisting it. How many people affected by the blackout and looking for information will really understand what its about?

Click to expand...

There's a link to an explanation on the blackout page ^^.

aelf said:

One day is nothing to me, but I'm sure there are people who would really be inconvenienced by it.

Click to expand...

I pity them.

aelf said:

But the main point is it's unnecessary.

Click to expand...

Oh, why is it?

They said it is OK to escape the blackout by disabling the Javascript

Akka said:

No, what kills PC gaming is actually the opposite : it's the "large market", making it more profitable to make shallow, dumbed-down game for the crowd. The piracy is just a pathetic excuse.

Click to expand...

I think that what "kill" PC gaming is simply the rise and diversification of console gaming. FPS, western rpg, etc, the console would absorb those genre one after another. Today, all that's left is MMO and strategy games.

For what it's worth, not having Wiki or Craigslist was a major pain in the butt for me at work. I use Wiki to get snap demographic data on random US towns and zipcodes, and their website is easier to navigate than the actual US Census website.

I'm glad they did it though, if it helps kill stupid legislation.

Here's some moar updates on this:

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were flooded with calls Wednesday morning in response to an online blackout by technology companies, including Wikipedia, Moveon.org, Reddit and thousands of other small sites protesting two related bills that would crack down on websites that use copyrighted materials and sell counterfeit goods. Some key lawmakers who've supported or co-sponsored the legislation are also backing off.

More @ U.S. Today

Click to expand...

At least Chris Dodd insist running for senator this year. Not that we Nutmeggers want him back anyway.

I like how they imply that Wikipedia is a "small site"

Well, judged by staff and budget, it is. Of course that's not the best metric in this case.

aimeeandbeatles said:

I like how they imply that Wikipedia is a "small site"

Click to expand...

I think you are reading that incorrectly. It's saying Wikipedia and also small sites. No one would call Wikipedia a "small" site. It has to be a top ten most viewed site. The comment seems poorly written though.

aimeeandbeatles said:

Still if theyre found out to be a liar they will get more bad publicity than they would if not saying anything.

Click to expand...

And if they're not found out, they get good publicity. With the added bennie that they will probably never be found out, because saying you're against SOPA is a subjective claim that can't be proved true or false by anybody who isn't telepathic. The only way to prove it false is if the CEO of Blizzard comes out and says he lied, and he's not that stupid.

My answer remains no: I don't see anything in here to verify that Blizzard is actually against SOPA, even if they say they are. There's pluses and minuses to every possible thing Blizzard could say here.

warpus said:

If you're against DRM you shouldn't have a problem with steam, as the company is against any sort of DRM.

Click to expand...

I hate Steam for reasons entirely unrelated to DRM. I bought the game. It's mine. I should be able to play it without running background crap that eats processor time. If my computer explodes and I have to build a new one, I should be allowed to play that game on my new computer. And I agree completely with Benefactor: there's nothing actually holding Steam to its promise to jailbreak all of its games when they go out of business. Most likely they'll file Eleven and hose everybody.

The_J said:

I pity them.

Click to expand...

Maybe they just need a quick source of information? Yeah, it's not like you can't find info elsewhere, but then these days people expect and are expected to find information very quickly. Who are you to say if they need or don't need it for the day? That's actually funny because I thought I'm judgemental about what people need.

The_J said:

Oh, why is it?

Click to expand...

Why is it necessary to block access entirely if you just want to raise awareness?

@Akka: You should play the demo for Kingdoms of Amular, you will love how much it feels like an action RPG version of WoW made for consoles

@aelf: I like Wikipedia's simple block, it is easy to turn off but still gets the point across. Meanwhile I keep opening up RPS and a couple of other sites despite them being completely off

@Warpus: As pointed out, Steam is DRM. So are CD keys.

BasketCase said:

. I should be able to play it without running background crap that eats processor time.

Click to expand...

Steam barely uses any processing power when you are running games, and what it does use is a non-issue unless your computer is older than Steam.

If my computer explodes and I have to build a new one, I should be allowed to play that game on my new computer.

Click to expand...

Which Steam allows you to do, it even has the Steam cloud which games can use (if the developers add in the support) to allow you to access your save games from any computer.

And I agree completely with Benefactor: there's nothing actually holding Steam to its promise to jailbreak all of its games when they go out of business. Most likely they'll file Eleven and hose everybody.

Click to expand...

Yeah the only mention of that is in an old interview with Gabe. While I do not doubt that Valve would like to jailbreak Steam if they went under, it may not be a possibility when they do (but we won't know until it actually happens, that is unlikely to happen for a good long while). However, that is a risk of buying from almost any digital retailer (since the only one that I know of that doesn't use DRM is GoG.com, and GamersGate doesn't use a client either and just relies upon whatever DRM the game came with). But anyway, this is getting off topic.

So, I was pretty sure that I almost never go to Wikipedia. Yet, by cutting and pasting things into Google to get an idea about what things are apparently takes me to the site 10+ per day, or at least that has been the case today.

Yeah, I had forgotten how much better wikipedia is than most of the other search results.

The_J said:

For the people who know to get around it.
Normally I'd say that people, who know how to turn Javascript off, are also aware of what SOPA and PIPA are.
Because it's everywhere mentioned how to get around it, I now rather suspect that more people know how to circumvent it than there are people who actually read about what the heck is going on there.

Click to expand...

If you click on their link, they explain who to do it. And they are quite clear that their objective is to raise awareness, not to prevent access to knowledge.

If this is really the case...the people get the government which they deserve, right? Might be better if the big net corps move their HQs to Iceland.

Click to expand...

The whole point of SOFA/PIPA is to prevent that.

Integral said:

SOPA's been shelved, not killed. The fight continues.

Click to expand...

What about the Online Protection and Digital Enforcement Act?

All should go down. What's worse is that if I set up a website here in Latin America the glorious United States of America might shut down my website in the name of freedom and such.

Congress is made up of a bunch of fools. It is my policy to pity fools.

Takhisis said:

What about the Online Protection and Digital Enforcement Act?

All should go down. What's worse is that if I set up a website here in Latin America the glorious United States of America might shut down my website in the name of freedom and such.

Click to expand...

They are in the same boat. If one goes down, so will the other. After all, both must pass both chambers of congress and be signed by the president.

Something will eventually pass, but I think the apocalyptic qualities of these bills will be cut out.

This is what happens when you have low voting standards, or none at all, and simply vote for the congressman with the biggest sign in front of your local library, or the person with the fancy speech.