The World of Video Gaming and SOPA/Protect IP

Today, November 16th, 2011 has been named American Censorship Day. Congress is trying to have two bills passed today, SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Protect IP (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011), which are laws much like those in China and Iran. The passing of these bills would mean that thousands of websites would be blocked from the internet. If you post lyrics to your favorite song on Facebook you’ve committed a crime. People all over America are currently calling congress to ask them to not pass this bill. So how is this affecting the gaming world? Well it actually is. All around the internet there a video posted by gamers called “Let’s Play” or other various video game walkthroughs that can be found on Youtube.com. If this bill is passed then all those videos will be made illegal and the publishers could be convicted for it. Online video game walkthroughs have become very popular across the internet with some of the most popular gamers being Chuggaaconroy, ProtonJonSA, and SlimKirby.