EA, Nintendo, and Sony still support SOPA through ESA backing

Tue, Jan 03, 2012 | 17:48 GMT

Despite reports over the holidays that EA, Nintendo and Sony have dropped support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill currently floating around in the US House and Senate, the firms have only been removed from a list of official supporters compiled by the House Judiciary Committee.

According to a report on The Raw Story (thanks, Blue), each firm is still standing behind the bill, albeit in proxy. Each company is a member of ESA, an industry lobbying group which supports the bill in full, as one of it?s main purposes is to help curb online piracy of games in a similar vein to the movie industry?s MPAA and the music industry?s RIAA.

ESA also has a piracy monitoring division, and lobbies Washington representatives each year on behalf of gaming companies that are members of the association.

However, not all large tech and gaming firms are completely behind the bill. Back in November, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) which includes members such as Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, requested the bill be altered in a way which would fight copyright infringement without censoring freedom of speech. BSA president Robert Holleyman admitted SOPA needs work and ?valid and important questions have been raised? regarding the bill.

Meanwhile, hackivist group Anonymous has said it plans to target Sony over its support of the bill, but intends to do it in a manner that will avoid the public backlash it received over PSNgate last year.

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2012/01/03/ea-nintendo-and-sony-still-support-sopa-through-esa-backing/

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