Kill SOPA, bill goes to house December 15.

[Hatta]

a few of my friends are saying this is only happening because it's an election year. I don't do politics much but what do you guys think of that?

No, they pass over reaching corporate friendly legislation all the time. The DMCA was passed in 1998 during a non-presidential election year.

[noiseredux]

I think Racketboy should black out on the 18th like other sites. Good to show solidarity against such a travesty as SOPA.

what would that accomplish? I'm guessing that everyone who visists RB is against the bill. So it's not like supporters of the bill are going to try to log on to RB and be like "oh nooooooo! Is THIS what I'm supporting???"

[Hatta]

I think there's still a lot of ignorance out there.

[Redifer]

With SOPA currently being "on hold" be sure not to let your guard down. Don't give up against PIPA, either. They will probably reword (and rename) SOPA to make it less evil than before and everyone will be like "Oooo this is nice, I will pass this piece of legislation because it's much better than that evil SOPA. The people have spoken!" Rewording and changing it are not enough, it must be killed!

[noiseredux]

I think there's still a lot of ignorance out there.

um... yeah.

I'm just saying I don't really know what an RB blackout would prove to all those people that don't visit RB.

[fastbilly1]

I think Racketboy should black out on the 18th like other sites. Good to show solidarity against such a travesty as SOPA.

what would that accomplish? I'm guessing that everyone who visists RB is against the bill. So it's not like supporters of the bill are going to try to log on to RB and be like "oh nooooooo! Is THIS what I'm supporting???"

I was thinking the same thing. There is no reason why Racket should blackout. It will be interesting to see what people do when Wikipedia and the others blackout. If Facebook or Google gets on the list, that will change everything.

My favorite part about all this is that if SOPA goes through, one of the the guys who first submitted it has an infringing website:
http://www.vice.com/read/lamar-smith-so ... ght-whoops

[Hatta]

The point is to make casual visitors aware of the issue, and encourage them to contact their representatives. Not everyone keeps up on this stuff, and not everyone is aware how broad the threat is. Think of all the screenshots, music clips, and references to trademarks there are on this site. If Sega were to go the way of Atari and become a copyright troll they could easily use the provisions in these bills to bully Racketboy. Every website threatened by these bills should inform its user base of the threat.

[noiseredux]

The point is to make casual visitors aware of the issue, and encourage them to contact their representatives. Not everyone keeps up on this stuff, and not everyone is aware how broad the threat is. Think of all the screenshots, music clips, and references to trademarks there are on this site. If Sega were to go the way of Atari and become a copyright troll they could easily use the provisions in these bills to bully Racketboy. Every website threatened by these bills should inform its user base of the threat.

just my opinion. I'm just saying that an RB blackout would have its heart in the right place, but would be preaching to the choir.

[Hatta]

Perhaps. But you'd be surprised how ignorant many gamers are about intellectual property issues. A lot of people just don't think about it until they are affected by it.

Can I at least be assured that you will all call your representatives tomorrow?

[ExedExes]

List of sites that are blacking out tomorrow here

http://sopastrike.com/

Google is joining in a limited capacity, so is OpenDNS if anyone here uses that (its search component, not the DNS service), Major League Gaming, icanhazcheezburger.com, etc....