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As the flawed Stop Online Protection Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act continues to concern the internet, a group of video game reviews are targeting one of the supporters in the entertainment industry, The Electronic Software Association, or ESA. The ESA is considered the voice of the video game industry. Their big event is E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. You’ve seen me cover news out of E3 here at the Spotlight. Well, with the ESA in support of SOPA some game reviewers are planning a boycott.
Again, fighting piracy of comics, TV shows, games, and music is a good thing and people need to learn that you don’t have a right to something for free just because it’s online. However, the bill currently in Congress is too broad and will hurt reviewers (text & video), fans, and people doing tributes. The bill needs to be redone from scratch, or you could just remind people about current fair use and copyright/trademark laws that already exist and simply need to be adapted for the internet, which this bill will not.
I will also not cover E3 events, although not being a gaming site I’m sure they won’t care. However, I would like to see other game reviews, reporters, and website boycott the event as a show of solidarity to their fellow reviewers and reporters. We support the goal of the bills but not the method to achieve it, since it not only WON’T stop piracy but will hurt innocent people in the process.
Related articles
- A Breakdown of SOPA and PIPA: What It Means For All Of Us…with Videos (grizzlybomb.com)
- SOPA controversy creates rival to game industry group ESA; LFG aims to be “the NRA for gamers” (venturebeat.com)
- Report – ESA dropped up to $190,000 on PIPA lobbying (vg247.com)
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