SOPA and the Video Game Industry

After yesterday's internet blackout, the largest of its kind since Al Gore and the reanimated head of Walt Disney invented the internet, it appears that SOPA and its ugly cousin PIPA are dead in the water. In the past 36 hours, 18 senators, including seven former co-sponsors, have dropped their support for PIPA.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with SOPA and PIPA, here's a short summary. The "Stop Online Piracy Act" (H.R 3261), and the Protect IP Act (S.968) are two separate but highly similar pieces of legislation aimed at giving greater legal leverage to companies and individuals to seek penalties against foreign and domestic website owners who post copyrighted content online. Under both pieces of legislation, the party seeking damages could request an injunction against the alleged perpetrating website, or more easily start litigation against the website owners. The legislation has been widely supported by Hollywood and the music industry to protect them against the ever-increasing amount of copyrighted content that makes its way onto the internet. The controversy of SOPA and PIPA stem from the fact that both pieces of legislation give broad authorization to the office of the Attorney General to block or prosecute the alleged offenders. Because the criminal penalties assigned under the legislation for violation of the new regulations are so steep, the fear is that any website owner accused of piracy would likely have to shut down, or be blocked by search engines and content providers. In short, the concern is that these pieces of legislation will limit free speech.

How have video game companies, large and small, reacted to SOPA and PIPA? Well, that's a difficult question to ask because there has been an abundance of misleading articles about this issue. In late December, several stories broke online that video game giants Nintendo, Sony Electronics, and Electronic Arts had quietly dropped support for SOPA and PIPA. The problem? Nintendo, Sony, and EA never officially supported the controversial legislation, and thus could not withdraw support that never existed. The three companies did sign onto a letter from the US Chamber of Commerce that urged Congress to support something like SOPA, before SOPA had ever been introduced.

That's not the end of the story, however. One of the approximately 120 organizations who currently support SOPA is the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the video game industry's trade association in the United States. Members of the ESA include Nintendo, Sony, and EA, along with familiar names like Microsoft, Atari, Capcom, Sega, Konami, and Ubisoft, among others. A full list of members can be found here.

ESA released this statement on January 3, 2012:

"As an industry of innovators and creators, we understand the importance of both technological innovation and content protection, and do not believe the two are mutually exclusive. Rogue websites – those singularly devoted to profiting from their blatant illegal piracy – restrict demand for legitimate video game products and services, thereby costing jobs. Our industry needs effective remedies to address this specific problem, and we support the House and Senate proposals to achieve this objective. We are mindful of concerns raised about a negative impact on innovation. We look forward to working with the House and Senate, and all interested parties, to find the right balance and define useful remedies to combat willful wrongdoers that do not impede lawful product and business model innovation."

What this means is that all of the video game companies listed on the ESA website tacitly approve of SOPA, even if there are no official press releases from those companies to that effect. Yet the huge backlash against SOPA and PIPA seems to be taking its toll. Yesterday, Microsoft released this statement:

“We oppose the passage of the SOPA bill as currently drafted. We think the White House statement points in a constructive way to problems with the current legislation, the need to fix them, and the opportunity for people on all sides to talk together about a better path forward.”

What is especially troubling about the ESA endorsement of SOPA, which if abused could easily curtail free speech rights, is that ESA fought and won a landmark Supreme Court case that granted video games First Amendment protection.

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Additional reporting by Elizabeth Frazier