So remember that whole theme about how corporate donors to politicians own our government? This is another example of that.

So not only is the entertainment industry backing this bill wholeheartedly, but the pharmaceutical companies as well. They're in it to stop foreign websites from selling drugs to us cheaper than US pharmaceutical companies are willing to do because they have a monopoly in the United States over drug prices. Entertainment companies are trying to stamp out pirating of their intellectual property claiming they've lost billions... even though the entertainment industry is still a multi-billion dollar a year industry and real pirating has a very small impact. In their bid to maximize profits to their highest potential, these corporations are supporting legislation that limits our freedom of speech and expression. Senators and House members are also using this bill to squeeze more campaign contributions from internet based companies who traditionally donate very little to political campaign causes. Basically, bills of this nature are high class "shakedowns."


Bottom line: This website is in danger. If you use videos of video games in reviews, you're in danger. If you post songs or movie clips, you're in danger. If you use anything that is the intellectual property of a corporation, no matter how benign, now matter the intention, you are in danger.

Fight this. If you don't believe in any of this corporate takeover of government, at least believe in this. This is important to you, me, and everybody. Fight it by going here and supporting these guys:

http://americancensorship.org/

http://fightforthefuture.org/

Also, throw your support behind the companies in danger that are actually fighting against this bill for the right reasons. They can be our best tools in fighting against this and getting the word out:

Twitter
AOL
Yahoo!
Google
Facebook
eBay
Zynga
LinkedIn
Mozilla

Spread that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjrPuYLAIkk


Call your Senators and Congressmen:

http://www.senate.gov/general/resources ... e_list.pdf

The Washington DC area code is 202. The way you read that phone list is by adding the 22 prefix before the numbers. So for example: Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) Washington office phone number is 1-202-224-2651.

Look up your local congressmen on Google to get their Washington office number and their local office number. They are in session right now, so they'll be in Washington.

Join a demonstration

Find out where your local Occupy protest is and join it. Make yourself visible, make your voice heard, make yourself a real threat to this bill. Let's face it, there isn't much we, the American people, can to do to squash this bill... but if we do all we can we have a chance to actually change the course of this country for the better.

There is still time to get involved in the fight.

Isn't this thing shelved?

It was delayed. It isn't dead.

Don't believe it, it will come back. If anything, it's going to get shelved until after the campaign because it's bad politically for the Republicans and Obama get's a win for opposing it so it's best to shelve it now before it really gets in the spotlight. Plus, more campaign contributions from the big internet companies were going to the Democrats than Republicans (up ~$40,000 average from the last campaign season (2010)) so that's another reason to pull the plug in a Republican controlled House. Democratic House members would rather keep in the bill in the air... a rather odd roll reversal but politics makes strange bedfellows. In other words, it was shelved for political reasons, not policy reasons. There has been almost zero coverage of SOPA by the mainstream media, so those who aren't connected to the internet community (like us nerds) don't know much about this bill. This isn't going to be the last assault on internet freedom either.

Also, congressmen got their payday from this bill already since campaign contributions came pouring in. We'll see this bill again when congressmen wanna use internet companies like an ATM in the future.

You can thank Citizens United for all this legalized bribery btw...

It angers me that the mainstream Australian media has really only gotten wind of this now that Wikipedia is partaking in the 'Anti-SOPA Blackout' tomorrow on the 18th, which is probably the 19th for Aussies with timezone difference. Worse is they barely cover or understand what SOPA is or threatens to do, they only care because the Wikipedia founder 'tweeted' about it and why they oppose it... frustrated and feels like I can do very little to stop it, can only hope majority of you guys who are american are playing your part, as are the Channel Awesome people who keep spreading the word!

It's alright though, I mean spreading the word is enough. And SOPA really is something that really concerns people in the U.S more than the world. So, expect that the Aussie press don't clearly understand it.

However, the repercussions of this act is what's scary, if Americans are censored, the rest of the whole world would soon follow. So the more people that know, the better.

It concerns the world just as much as it concerns America. SOPA is an offense on a global scale. A criminal offense even.

SOPA is shelved. PIPA isn't.

Well tomorrow's the blackout, reddit, wikipedia, imgur, and some others are protesting and going down. Are the Game Heroes and some of the major community based gaming sites doing it too?

We haven't heard anything from Tom so doubt the site would be down, same would go for Screwattack, IGN or other major gaming sites, only one I know will be down is Destructoid and they genuinely are doing what they can to spread the word. Tumblr is supposed to be down too, the disapointing part is the majority of it's user base is whinging and posting complaints about it going down for a day and having no clue as to why it's going dark, would hope the website is explaining to the user base why SOPA needs to be stopped

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71545.html


google and mozilla are protesting tomorrow too. I'm trying to get word if facebook is down though.

Social Networking sites aren't going down but we can all do our part. I've sent a letter to my congressman about SOPA.

Spread the word

use these images for facebook tomorrow (I'm PST) or now.

http://imgur.com/a/0rJ8c

Yes, but the House wont move on the bill even if it passes the Senate... which it wont. It is worth it to still fight PIPA tooth and nail if it's just making the public opposition to the bill known.

Well, not Like I ever go anyways. I'm just wondering if the major players like G4TV and IGN will be on board with this. Probably not but, We'll see.

Senator Marco Rubio, the co-sponsor of the PIPA has abandoned the bill.

http://gizmodo.com/5877185/pipa-co+sponsor-retreats-from-awful-bill

Of course they won't

IGN posted an article regarding their view on SOPA/PIPA too, about as clean cut PR as it can get

RIP Megaupload

Noooooooooooooooooot gonna stick. Dumbest Political move of the year.