Dear Entertainment Software Association,
Last year, when free speech in the videogame industry was threatened, you asked for help from gamers. The famous Brown v. EMA/ESA case provided a landmark ruling that protected videogame content under the First Amendment. You appealed to gamers for their support and coverage, and many gamers rallied around the industry.
Now, when free speech at large is threatened, you not only refuse to fight the threat, you actually join forces with it. You operate a group that claims to protect free speech -- the Videogame Voters Network -- and pretend to champion the rights of gamers, but until you stop supporting the Stop Online Piracy Bill, that's all the VGVN is: a pretense.
It is hypocrisy on a most despicable level to continue supporting SOPA after asking gamers to fight for the rights of the game industry. You are sending the message that you want exclusive freedom for your stable of publishers, while the freedom of others means nothing. You are sending the message that the ESA is an organization that begs for help from a community, only to abandon and betray that community at the earliest convenience. You are the Starscream of trade associations.
I find it wholly disgusting that you support SOPA in light of what you pretend to fight for, and what you asked of us all just months before. As other companies dissolve their allegiance with this poorly written, glaringly broken bill, I ask you to do the same. Do not be Starscream. Do for the Internet what you asked the Internet to do for you.
Thank you,
Jim Sterling
Reviews Editor, Destructoid.com
P.S. In using an image of Starscream for a blog header, I could risk becoming a felon. What fun!
Contest:
11:00 AM on 01.02.2012
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Well put good sir
Aren't most companies FORCED to support SOPA right now, regardless of if they believe in it, just so that it looks like they made an effort to protect their IPs at the present time in order to be able to protect them in possible future lawsuits?
Don't get me wrong, I think SOPA is BS, but it also feels like the bigger issues here are the convoluted legal system in the US and the legal technicalities that come with running large corporations. Of course, trying to fix THOSE problems is much more difficult than just trying to prevent a bill from being passed, but no matter how many times SOPA gets turned down, it will just come back over and over again in different forms until people of "the internet" finally get tired of defending it or just can't be bothered to pay attention to its many reiterations being proposed in the future.
Anyway, just as dinosaurs will always find a way to breed when genetically engineered on a remote tropical island, piracy will always find a way to continue, regardless of SOPA PIPA and DR PEPPER.
If the worst comes and SOPA passes, what do we do other than tweet about how SOPA is terrible? When is enough, enough?
In all seriousness, though, it is really genuinely disgusting that they're turning against the people they asked for help not a year ago.
I don't believe SOPA will pass, but if it does, the asskicking it will receive from the Supreme Court will be epic and I will enjoy reading about it more than I did the California Law when it got torn to shreds.
awesome
I love this website
The problem with that analogy is that its when people DON'T drop the sopa that we get fucked.
Good point tho, lets hope they listen to a little reason. Cuz seriously, I'd rather have dinobot than starscream on my team.
Just doesn't seem fair not to give them their duly deserved credit.
Sadly I don't think the ESA will pay much mind to someone who refers to them as the "Starscream of trade associations." It would take a LOT more opposition than one fat man who makes incredibly geeky comparisons and works on a video game blog website.
O... Kay? Sorry, are you doing that thing that people do where they take Jim entirely too seriously? If so, have fun being the butt of a "fat mans" jokes.
It's not a conspiracy -- it's their job. SOPA helps the bottom line of the people who pay them. The hypocrisy and double standard pointed out here isn't surprising because they're here to make money, not sense. It's why I automatically question anybody who cites them with something that they say.
They're a lobby. Period. They run E3 to sell and hype software, not because they love gamers so much.
I really wish the community was a little more aware of how businesses and economics work. Our hobby is not different from many others: it is just as a business as others, yet sometimes we seem to think otherwise.
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Revuhlooshun/video-games-aren-t-perfect-and-the-esa-is-full-of-shit-211474.phtml
Come at me trolls.
I know your mostly right, but this sentiment just depresses me a little.
Bingo. Lobbyists are in Washington right now arguing for things like SOPA, they were doing it yesterday, and they'll be doing it tomorrow. Once SOPA comes crashing down, and it will, the ESA will back the next push for SOPA style legislation, which they will inevitably play as a compromise while citing the obvious issues with SOPA as it stands now.
I agree, there is no need for conspiracy when it is all set on the table for people to see from the start. We aren't a small persecuted group living on the fringes of the entertainment industry, we're the largest cog in the whole entertainment machine. The electronic entertainment lobbies are as bloodthirsty as the lobbies for any huge industry, its the nature of the beast.
What really gets me though is that there will still be costumers supporting (aka giving them money) these kind of backstabbing douchebags even after being stabbed. These kind of BS keeps on happening partly because we the community allows it. That's like a person going back to an abusive relationship hoping things will get better. SCREW THAT.
SOPA is just one of dozens of tyrannical moves this government is making to clamp down on this so-called free society.
When will people wake from their sleeping stupor? When will young children stop judging their leaders by looks, and start learning the truth? Well, doesn't matter.....nobody listens. Everyone thinks their life is assured, and America can't possibly go the way of dictatorship. Well, as of new years eve, the Bill of Rights is dead, and you basically have a full blown tyranny on your hands, and it's spreading worldwide.
What once was the beacon of hope for freedom and entrepreneurism, is now becoming a disgusting militaristic empire of poisoned and brain washed zombies that don't see what is happening rightnin front of them.
Im curious. Is there ANYONE on this website that has an inkling of understanding to what I am saying? Or are all of you asleep?