As all of us know, we are facing a possible doom to all our gaming & fun we have enjoyed all our life. PIPA & SOPA is a very real possibility which is haunting us all. I wanted to make this thread to thank Dennis for all his hard work & hard earned money he's spent on this amazing website and all of us. Let us hope that it does not pass, and if it does pass, let us hope that it does not start a mess that could possibly be regreted in the future.

Best luck to all of you and your families. Thank you again Dennis for all your hard work & opposition towards this doomful bill.

Don't die just yet >.> the War is not over so get back on your feet!

I have not given up. I am thanking him ahead of time in case it gets passed & is in effect quicker than we can blink*.
Edited by ODST_Nick on Jan 18, 2012 at 08:52 PM

dont worry about that law.. even Obama disagree that law..

Obama has lost his touch.

Wonder what happened to NDAA? Eh?

Even I lost my hopes for that guy......dang im..

Don't worry guys, SOFA's chances of passing are slim to none.

Yeah, there's a huge deal about it on Youtube. All the fuss makes you think that it will pass, but powerful companies like Google are opposing it, I just signed a petition against it, several Congress members drew off their support for it, it's going to be alright I think. :)

Well, if it only did what it's supposed to do according to it's name, we wouldn't have this annoying situation with all of you complaining about powers that the police will never actually use/abuse.

What powers do the police get other than the power to 'Stop Online Piracy' in this act anyway?

Seriously this. It blows my mind that Obama takes a stand against internet censorship, but backs down from his stand against the indefinite detention of American citizens in a military prison without cause, trial, or access to a lawyer.

What the proposed bill does is shift the responsibility of protecting copyrights from the copyright owner to the provider. In essence making the website owner responsible for the infractions of of others. If either of those bills passed I would have to close the websites. For example I would not be able to accept a Zip or RAR file from anyone without proof that you have purchased and licensed the software you used to create it. I would not be able to post the maps without proof that you have permission from Microsoft. If I posted it I would be libel for your copyright infraction. If you posted a link in our forums linking to a site that contained something that violated the bill I would also be responsible. It was not intended that way but it is the result of the law of unintended consequences.

I'm quite sure thats not an international law...

Of course not, it is a proposed bill in the US congress but it was intended to prevent the copyright violations of international (non-US) organisations. It makes the service providers directly responsible for the transmission over the net and has the unintended effect of stifling free speech in the US.

This isn't the same America we knew 6 years ago...

R.I.P Megaupload, it's now closed forever T.T

I did an essay on both sides of this, why it should be done, and why it shouldnt be done. After lots of research, both have valid points somewhat, and while the bill intends to do good (somewhat), the effects it have would decimate the internet forever, and it would also effect freedom of speech. Not directly, but lots of forums like these would have to be closed, similar to some of the points that Dennis said. If not, a lot of people would be in trouble.

The chances of it actually passing are also really slim, the people that want this done are mostly music/movie producers etc that want every single penny they can get out of the consumers.

I'm sorry, but I highly doubt the bill will pass.. :/

I'm sure I know, but where do you stand on this whole thing Dennis.

{flip answer deleted}

Sorry I read the question incorrectly because there wasn't one (?) that is.

The copyright laws have real value in the US as they protect intellectual rights and economic viability of the creators or copyright holders. One of the reasons I don't host Halo PC modded maps is because they violate the original copyright and End User License agreement. I am sure that I could without much recrimination but the fact is they are in violation of the copyright so I don't. Another example is that I don't host any utility that cracks or modifies the Halo Custom Edition executable like the version changer and some other hacks because they violate the EULA and copyright where the custom maps for the most part do not. I walk the line with things like the Sonic or the Metroid maps or where people have put in copyrighted assets or images into the maps because they are in the grey area of fair use. Even Kornman's hacked utilities are actually a violation but again since there is an argument for fair use and they are only used for making maps I don't have an issue with them.

The SOPA and PIPA bills take copyright violations out of the civil realm and make it criminal with direct governmental intervention mandatory giving the government the power and actually the requirement to censor "violating" websites by forcing the service providers to deny service to any copyright violation regardless of the copyright holders wishes.

What I mean by the last statement is that even if the copyright holder doesn't care about the violation the bill in essence makes it criminal anyway. Right now copyright violations are civil law not criminal (only becoming criminal when costs become high) and it is up to the copyright holder to make a civil claim to shut down a website. Under the proposed bills the government can and must take action. which is very different that could and might take action.

As I said in a previous post I would not be able to insure compliance so would have to take down the websites. There are costs associated to free speech, hearing and having to allow speech you don't like as only one of the minor ones, but the the cost of censorship regardless of how well intentioned is astronomical and unacceptable.
Edited by Dennis on Jan 19, 2012 at 07:50 PM

Megaupload is down, let's just hope they don't get Mediafire next..

███ ██ trust █ ██████ your ████ █ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███ government ███ ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ████ ██████████ █ everything █████████ ███ ████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ is ██████████ ██████████ ███████ ███ █████ fine.

NOTICE: Parts of this comment have been found in violation of H.R. 3261, S.O.P.A and Senate Bill 968, P.I.P.A. and has been censored.


All jokes aside, all I can do now is just hope it doesn't pass and move on.

Aha, i can also see every hacker in the world getting annoyed at this. I'm sure attacks on large websites will happen because of this. This will be rather interesting.

http://gizmodo.com/5877679/anonymous-kills-department-of-justice-site-in-megaupload-revenge-strike

Sorry, I typed that post using an iPod.

It's all good.

It won't pass. Those congressmen like their paychecks... and "alive" status

Even if it does pass, it'll only stay a few days. The amount of dead Feds on the doorstep of congress will make them reconsider.

That, and the threat of World War 3-Revenge of the Halomaps

If it passes, Anonymous will hack the Pentagon and activate every single nuclear bomb the US has, causing World War 3, obliterating the entire of the US... plus any other country that supports SOPA.

Please dont scare me

kthxbai

What makes me sad is the fact that this is being done because of the music and movie industry.
Not to keep the internets a safe place for my children, but solely to protect the profits of big business.

Fat egocentric -holes care only for themselves; they could care less about our generation who's going to be protecting this planet in the future.

But Halo is copyrighted by 343i & Microsoft.

So like he said above, you would need permission from them to use their content. (He explained it better above)

Halomaps would be gone in a flash if they passed.

I don't see why Halomaps would be taken down. Microsoft supports Halo fan sites and Halomaps is effectively a fan site. If the government tried to take Halomaps out, Microsoft would probably intervene in order to gain public attention. Their marketing team has brains, believe it or not.

So... you don't believe what Dennis says about the site that he owns?

You guys who are thinking that the American government is going to shut down these sites are wrong.
Most of them (including this site) will be shutdown by their owner.