SEGNIN'S PROFILE

author=supremewarrior
Oh crap, man I was watching lots of TV programs using MegaVideo! Damn SOPA and PIPA!

Oh, yeah. That's another thing that pissed off Hollywood, having tv/movies streamed.

author=chana
What don't you know?! thxs for all of it.

I guess you're thanking me?

Well, your welcome. I've been keeping my eye closely on this SOPA/PIPA mess, since I'm in the USA. I just happened to try to download a game from MU when the link page wouldn't load. Fearing the worst, I googled for the most recent news about MU, and there was that NY Times article.

author=calunio
I'm starting to get really REALLY worried about using copyrighted material in games.

Nobody is going to care about using sprites (falls under Fair Use).
Especially if you mix and match sprites from several games and edit them a little.

Where it gets iffy is if you make a fan-game where you use not only sprites from a commercial game, but also the same names for the main characters as the ones in the original game, the same names for any places/events, draw heavily from the plot of the commercial game, etc.

Then, if you advertise your game TOO much, you might get noticed and if the copyright holder takes offense...

But for mp3's, it might be a good idea to rename them to something less obvious than: Evanescence - Bring Me to Life.mp3

Also where possible, re-encode .mp3's to .ogg just to be extra safe (not really an option with rm2k3).

author=chana

author=BareGamer
A demonstration for what SOPA will do, should it pass.

Precisely, so what is the American government saying through this ? I'm puzzled.

It's an intimidaton tactic.

Not only do they take down the largest file-sharing service. They also put the screws to all the other file-sharing services to tighten up their anti-piracy measures.

Or have you noticed how almost every hotfile link that's copyrighted material gets taken down relatively fast? Been that way for months.

Here's the story from the NY Times:

Federal prosecutors in Virginia say they have shut down one of the world’s largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

An indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after Web sites shut down in protest of two Congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says that at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular Web site in the world.

LINK:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/technology/indictment-charges-megaupload-site-with-piracy.html