A petition on Change.org that we mentioned on January 10 has caught on fire and now enjoys more than 120,000 virtual signatures. The petition was aimed at Electronic Arts and its top executives and it urged them to publically oppose SOPA and PIPA. EA does not have an official position on either bill, but it was one of several signatories on a Chamber of Commerce letter back in September of 2011 urging lawmakers to pass tough anti-piracy legislation.

Red 5 Studios, makers of the upcoming MMO shooter Firefall, have come out strongly against SOPA and PIPA, and plan to go dark for one day on January 18 to protest. The company also announced that, because of the Entertainment Software Association’s support for the bills, it has canceled its E3 booth and plans to skip the show. The shutdown will include all of its websites, its community sites for the game, and the Firefall beta.

An interesting story on The Hill points out that U.S. President Barack Obama faces a tough choice if the Stop Online Piracy or Protect IP Acts are passed by lawmakers because he has a vested interest in both Silicon Valley and the entertainment industry - two segments of the business community that heavily contributed to his 2008 campaign and continue to support him in 2012.

Torchlight developer Runic Games has officially come out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). In a forum thread asking the company for its position on the anti-piracy bills currently before U.S. lawmakers, a Runic Games representative said the following:

In a mailer from advocacy group Free Press they ask the question we have all been asking ourselves for months: Why is the media ignoring the Stop Online Piracy Act? The short answer is that various broadcast and cable networks may have been muzzled by their parent companies. The only network that has mentioned it so far has been Bloomberg, and that coverage consisted of ten minutes - and only because Reddit's CEO brought the issue up on air.

An interesting story on VentureBeat points out the folly of Comcast who recently rolled out an upgrade across its network that is at odds with certain provisions of the Stop Online Piracy Act - a bill that the parent company of NBC Universal strongly supports.

Markus "Notch" Persson, Minecraft creator and co-founder of Mojang, added his two cents to the Stop Online Piracy argument today. When asked by PC Gamer about the bill before the House of Representatives, Notch said that a person would have to be crazy to support it.

The official Reddit Blog announces a "blackout" of the popular site on January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC) to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. While it would be better if Facebook, Twitter, and Google joined them in this very strong public protest, Reddit understands that it must do what it has to do in order to make a point about these bills. From the site:

League of Legends developer Riot Games let us know that they, have officially announced their opposition to controversial legislation under consideration in Congress: the U.S. House of Representatives’ Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The company's CEO, Brandon Beck, took to the official forums for the game (which has 11-million-players, for the record) to say that these two bills in their present form are unacceptable:

A new petition on Change.org, which already has over 1,800 signatures, is asking Electronic Arts to publicly come out against the Stop Online Piracy Act. The petition was created by New York University student and gamer Shashank Kasturirangan. The petition is directed at Tammy Levine - VP of Worldwide PR, Joel Linzner VP of Business and Legal Affairs, EA CEO John Riccitiello, and SVP of Corporate Communications Jeff Brown.

Nine-hundred and twenty-eight. That is the magic number of the day because it is the number of experts, trade groups, advocacy groups and technology companies that have officially come out against the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts. The list, which was compiled by The Center for Democracy & Technology features a who's who of technology experts, CEO's and top shelf advocacy groups that thinks these two anti-piracy and counterfeiting laws do more harm than good.

Maybe the comments on the Video Game Voters Network (the Entertainment Software Association's advocacy group for gamers) Facebook page are purely anecdotal, or represent what Lamar Smith (the Texas Republican Congressman who is to lead sponsor on the Stop  Online Piracy Act) calls a very "vocal minority," but the entire page seems to be inundated with negative comments.

On Friday the Entertainment Consumer Association (ECA) sent out a PSA to its partners and friends asking them to join them in the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act - two anti-piracy and rogue web site laws that fight illicit copyrights infringement and counterfeit goods at the cost of free speech, fair use and the integrity of the Internet. We posit that free speech will always be a more valuable commodity than the profits of corporations and special interests and should always be protected.

SOPA has another detractor today and it's a bit of a surprise to everyone: the Online News Association. ONA has officially come out against both SOPA and PIPA, saying that both bills do very little to fight piracy. The group issued an open letter on its site pointing out the multitude of flaws these bills have and the troubles they will inevitably cause to the Internet. From the letter:

"[W]e believe SOPA would do little to stem those problems and would actually cause harm to the Internet and to the American public.

Is the mainstream broadcast media ignoring SOPA and Protect IP because their parent companies support it? Media Matters thinks so, and has released the results of an investigation on the topic.

If Grover Norquist isn't breaking up with SOPA, he's certainly taking some time to revealuate his relationship with the anti-piracy bill. The face of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform is letting his underlings say the things he hasn't personally said about SOPA: he doesn't like it in its current form.

Earlier this week Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian took a few minutes to talk to Bloomberg TV about the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. It's an interesting but short interview that brings to bear the main point that tech innovators opposing this bill have been saying: companies like Reddit who rely on user-generated content - would not have been possible had these laws been in effect.

The choice quote of the interview, as pointed out by BetaBeat, is this one:

The RIAA earlier this week strongly and quite publicly rejected calls to support the OPEN Act, the SOPA alternate online piracy bill from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The group which represents the music industry said that the OPEN Act was not a "meaningful solution" to the problem of online piracy.

RIAA senior executive vice president Mitch Glazier argued that the ITC doesn't move fast enough for their tastes.

Forbes has an excellent editorial up about the ESA's support of the Stop Online Piracy Act that does a great job of explaining - in simple English - how it could affect every day web sites who might not necessarily be engaged in anything but providing content.

In a response to a question about the protests over SOPA going on at Reddit, the bill's sponsor Lamar Smith (R-Texas) described the community to political site Roll Call as a "vocal minority" whose complaints about the bill were "unfounded." Reddit users have a simple response for the head of the House Judiciary Committee: Challenge Accepted and Completed.

Professional game players organization Major League Gaming clearly is against the Stop Online Piracy Act and has made a move to show its disdain for the bill by removing one hundred domains from GoDaddy's care. The company announced yesterday that it will not align itself with companies that support the House anti-piracy bill.

A report on Digital Trends confirms that Capcom supports the efforts of the ESA as it relates to the Stop Online Piracy Act, though the confirmation is merely one sentence from a Capcom representative.

When asked about the company's support, Capcom's representative responded in an email saying "The ESA represents us on these matters."

In a brief statement on the official Epic Games forums, PR Manager Dana Crowley shared the company's position on the Stop Piracy Online Act. The short story is that they do not support it in its current form.

Epic also acknowledges that they are a member of the Entertainment Software Association, which strongly supports the house bill that will be taken up again by the House Judiciary community on January 23. 

From the Epic forums:

Take a look at this list. We love the companies on this list because, for the most part, they make great games. The problem is that they are members of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), and by proxy they support SOPA. And, according to the statement issued to Joystiq today, the ESA is not backing down from that support.

In a statement emailed to Joystiq, the trade group said the following:

Nathan Fouts of Mommy's Best Games - the company behind Serious Sam: Double D - has written an open letter to members of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) asking them to urge the trade group to drop its support of SOPA. He also urged gamers, supposedly represented by the ESA and its Video Game Voters Network, to urge the group to drop its support of the bill as well.

A TechieBuzz report points out an interesting fact about GoDaddy's initial support of SOPA; that it may have been done as a way to deal with some problems related to some pending legal action against the company by some major Hollywood trade organizations. The report suggests that GoDaddy might have supported the bill to gain immunity from a court-case against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Last month the American Assembly, a non-partisan public policy forum associated with Columbia University, released a paper titled "Copyright Infringement and Enforcement in the US." That paper came to the conclusion that 15 percent of U.S. file-sharers hide their IP-addresses using proxies and virtual private networks. Researchers, who conducted 2,303 telephone interviews, also found that roughly half of all adults could be branded as pirates.

A new video supposedly from the hacking group Anonymous warns Sony that they are soon to be targeted for their support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

TechDirt reports that the boycott of GoDaddy over its support for SOPA may be fizzling out. Pointing to data from DailyChanges, TechDirt says that the domain name and hosting service actually gained more customers than it lost. According to this graphic, GoDaddy saw a net gain of 20,748 new domains registered (43,304 new registrations versus 35,907 deletions) yesterday.

Domain registrar and web hosting provider Domain.com is taking advantage of GoDaddy's bad PR related to its support of SOPA to steal away customers. The company, which claims to have over five million domains under its management, said this morning in a press release that it "is unwavering in its opposition to SOPA's infringement of First Amendment rights," adding that it "firmly opposes the legislation, and invites like-minded domain owners to join them by transferring away from companies that have shown support for SOPA."

Ouch.