If you’re at all tech-savvy nowadays, you’ve no doubt heard all about SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act). If you haven’t and you enjoy, you know, things like Youtube, Reddit, Facebook and pretty much the entirety of user-created content on the internet, it would behoove you to get educated. Now.
The short version, for the lazy among you, is that these bills would provide copyright/IP holders the ability to be able to blacklist and/or shut down access to sites deemed in violation of any copyright infringement. This could potentially be over something as simple as someone having music playing in the background of a video stream on their Justin.tv account. It totally circumvents the Safe Harbor aspect of the DMCA and could potentially lead to the death of any sites hosting user-generated content.
Many major multimedia companies support these bills, ostensibly in the interest of protecting their properties. This list of supporters also includes the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). While some individual companies that are part of the ESA may oppose this (Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski mentioned their stance on Twitter), continuing to support the ESA just gives the appearance of tacit approval.
So in light of this, it’s nice to see Riot Games, creators of League of Legends, taking a firm stand against this legislation by not only providing front page news about this on their website, but also by trying to rally their player base to fight against it. In a forum thread that is already 100+ pages as of this writing, the community is voicing their support, including Colorado Congressman and avid League player Jared Polis. Riot’s legal counsel, Logan Margulies, is also currently taking questions on an AMA thread on Reddit for those interested.
It’s certainly nice to see the League of Legends community, which is sadly generally pretty divisive and toxic on the forums most of the time, banding together to support a good cause. Would that a few more companies would follow Riot’s lead on this one.
[Via: League of Legends]
