While we haven’t talked much about it, there are two fairly dangerous pieces of legislation making their way through the US House of Representatives. The Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act (more commonly referred to as SOPA and PIPA, respectively), if enacted, would dramatically change the internet forever. They would allow copyright holders, without any warrants or subpoenas, to seize websites that they feel are infringing upon their work. In addition, these bills would allow for fines or even jail time for something as simple as posting a speed run from any given game.

This is all being done in a misguided attempt to stop piracy. While we at Talking About Games do not condone piracy, these bills give far too much censorship power with little to no regulations on what can and cannot be censored. In theory, Talking About Games could easily be shut down for any video features that we run or for simply using an image on any given article.

It’s a dangerous form of censorship and we feel that we cannot be silent. We have decided that, along with several other websites, we will be joining in a blackout protest against SOPA and PIPA. For 12 hours on January 18, when you try to log onto TAG, you will be redirected to a website explaining the dangers of SOPA and PIPA.  This is something that we feel strongly about, as well as many other websites and companies such as Red 5 Studios, Epic Games (though it should be noted that they are still a part of the Entertainment Software Association, which DOES support SOPA) and NVIDIA. We hope that you understand why we feel we must do this.

In the mean time, please check out the Entertainment Consumers Association for ways that you can help tell your representatives that you do not want any part of this dangerous new legislation.