ESA confirms SOPA commitment

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Anti-piracy bill gets support from key video game association

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) confirmed it will continue supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) despite opposition from a number of its members and the gaming community at large.

SOPA has lost many influential video game supporters since its arrival in September, including Nintendo, EA, and Sony Electronics. However, since many of these same companies comprise ESA's current membership, their withdrawal from the SOPA supporters list has appeared to critics like a safe public relations move, rather than a firm stance against the controversial bill.

The ESA's faith in SOPA—or at least the spirit of SOPA—has also drawn criticism from the industry. In one example, Mommy's Best Games founder Nathan Fouts this week implored ESA members to pressure the association into ditching its SOPA support, posting, “From what I can tell, my company lost plenty of potential sales of our recent game Serious Sam Double D to online piracy. But SOPA is not the answer to fixing piracy problems!”

A vote on SOPA was recently delayed until sometime in early 2012. If passed, SOPA will provide the US Government and private corporations with greater authority in the war against online piracy by allowing them to seek swift legal action against websites they believe to be in violation of copyright laws. SOPA opponents argue the bill far too vague in what it classified as copyright violations, and that it would lay the groundwork for greater internet censorship.

Read the (shrinking) list of SOPA supporters link.

Matt Bradford

Matt Bradford wrote news and features here at GamesRadar+ until 2016. Since then he's gone on to work with the Guinness World Records, acting as writer and researcher for the annual Gamer's Edition series of books, and has worked as an editor, technical writer, and voice actor. Matt is now a freelance journalist and editor, generating copy across a multitude of industries.