Thread: Wednesday January 18th - Free Frag Network is Protesting SOPA

As my knowledge on SOPA isn't up to par, I was just wondering what would happen to FFN if SOPA was passed.

Originally Posted by 13thforswarn

As my knowledge on SOPA isn't up to par, I was just wondering what would happen to FFN if SOPA was passed.

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

in all seriousness, the website would be shut down for an indeterminate amount of time, without a hearing, based on the Pony thread alone.
then there's all the times we linked and cross posted gaming footage, reviews, movie trailers, literally anything that's been copyrighted can shut the site down, even if it's just a link.
this includes web-exclusive things like My Drunk Kitchen and Epic Meal Time as well. Because the way everything comes together is that if there's copyright infringement, a copyright holder HAS to act on it lest he lose his copyright. then add in SOPA/PIPA, and you get content creators who MUST act against websites who link/post infringing material, which then brings down the website, possibly forever.

....Basically an impossible amount of forced litigation that a country already $14trillion in debt could NEVER afford.
Only extremely well backed entertainment monopolies could afford those levels of litigation and legal filings.
So when opponents say it would stifle competition, that's a HUGE understatement since it would literally Eliminate all competition.

The upfront price tag for this regulatory enforcement is only 47mil but that obviously doesn't include all the private captial that would be wasted to combat or retain IP rights. Hobby artists who've always had their crap stolen over the years, would have no recourse at all since they have no capital to begin with. And there's been no mention in the summaries of both legislations (as I've read them) which describes government assistance for said artists and IP holders.... only that this enforcement would basically be directed by the agency(ies) overseeing it which is Congress-speak for the lobbyists calling in favors personally the same way most "Corporate Wellfare" directives are enacted. Where-as private individual government assistance programs tend to cost several times as much ... the Consumer Financial Protections Agency being the most recent example (500million annually) which the House is currently now attempting to "Defund".

Originally Posted by Makatiel

No 24/7 spam

Originally Posted by Makatiel

So Spiffy pretty much hit it on the head.

If SOPA/PIPA were to pass we would have to shut down FFN for the most part.

IF... IF we decided to continue running the game servers we would have to get rid of the entire forum as it is now. We would have a section for server issues and bans. All hotlinks and image posting would be disabled. Any thread that was not strictly about FFN business would be deleted. Chances are forums would be moderated and a moderator would have to approve a post before it would appear to the public.

Basically, the death of fun. No chatbox. No 24/7 spam. No General Discussion. No anything.

NO. I need that section to live.