While some politicians in Poland believe that signing the ACTA treaty was a smart idea - even in the midst of actual protesting in the streets (some put the number of protesters at 20,000 people), some have sided with the public. The picture to your left - found on TechDirt - shows that some politicians in the country have some sense. Today a whole gaggle of politicians donned famed Guy Fawkes masks in the Parliament to protest the vote.

Electric Playground recently caught up with Hal Halpin, President and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), to talk about the online battle to stop the passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Halpin talks about how the online protest last week slowed down the momentum of both SOPA and PIPA, and why these bills aren't quite dead yet.

Check out the video to your left.

[Full Disclosure: GamePolitics is an ECA publication.]

Story time!

Last month, musician Dan Bull rapped his thoughts about SOPA in a YouTube video called SOPA Cabana (you should watch it.  It’s really well done).  This video went viral and racked up over a million views.  As it happens, it was through this video that most people discovered Dan’s second album, Face, which he offered for free on Megaupload.

Yeah, I think you see where this is going.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales takes former Senator (D-Connecticut) and current MPAA president Chris Dodd to task over recent comments he made to Fox news and specifically about calling Wikipedia's SOPA-PIPA blackout protest an "abuse of power."

The comment Dodd made to Fox News:

A new petition asks the Obama Administration to investigate the MPAA and its president Christopher Dodd for comments he has made publicly about paying politicians to do what the trade group representing the entertainment industry want when it comes to legislation. Dodd is a former Senator from Connecticut. Here's the exact wording of the petition:

Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation wrote a rather lengthy thank-you note to those in the Internet community that got involved in the blackout of the popular online site. While we can't list every one, we did note her thanks to GamePolitics contributor Dan Rosenthal, and the 1,800 English Wikipedia users who convinced the site to go dark.

Wikipedia has posted a thank-you message on its Black Out Page thanking visitors for strongly participating in yesterday’s SOPA-PIPA protest. On Wikipedia’s SOPA Learn More Page, the site lists a number of interesting milestones from yesterday:

Andrew Eisen gives us a visual representation of how gamers felt when they heard the news that the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) was supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act. Is this the thanks gamers get from the trade group representing the video game industry after all of their hard work in Brown v. EMA?

We'll let you judge for yourselves. This is probably the best video Andrew has ever made, in my humble opinion. Watch it to you left and be sure to stop by Andrew's YouTube Channel to subscribe.

After just one day of Internet protests and a concerted effort by the Internet community, the mainstream media finally took notice of the war between the entertainment industry and the Internet over SOPA and PIPA. Every broadcast and cable television network - much to their chagrin - was forced to say something about sites like Wikipedia and Reddit going dark, and Google's redacted logo had a huge impact as well. With the increased media attention and a deluge of phone calls and emails from constituents, several lawmakers panicked and withdrew their support from the bill.

On January 18 at 8:00 am ET GamePolitics and other ECA-owned websites will go dark in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Acts. We are proud to stand with an estimated 7,000 web sites and organizations to show our opposition to the government’s efforts to curtail free speech and innovation in the name of protecting the interests of corporations and lobbyists. We feel that there are better ways to fight online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods without comprising innovation, free speech, and the integrity of the Internet.

Zachary Cohn dropped us a note to let us know about a parody of the song "American Pie" called "The Day the Lolcats Died." The parody video was created by Cohn and his partners-in-crime over at Laugh Pong to protest SOPA and PIPA. Cohn calls it "entertaining and light, but with a clear call to action." We agree. Be sure to look for a special cameo from someone very familiar. You can check out the video to you left.

Raw Story announced that it will go dark tomorrow in protest of SOPA and PIPA. The site, which describes itself as "a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media," claims a reach of 1.6 million unique readers per month. In a post explaining why it was going dark, the site said that, while the "news doesn't stop," if Congress passes either SOPA or PIPA "your access to it could."

Firefall developer Red 5 has been so inspired by the level of support and good will towards it for its planned SOPA/PIPA protest tomorrow that it has made them think that there needs to be more advocacy for gamers and game makers. With that in mind, they have launched League for Gamers, an advocacy group that will fight against government and corporate efforts to stifle the free speech and creativity of gamers.

Craigslist has added a section to its About Page dedicated to fighting against the Stop Online Piracy Action and Protect IP Act worth taking a look at. The page offers an exhaustive list of resources and points out efforts from the ECA, EFF, OpenCongress, and more. It also features its opposition prominently on its front page. The page also includes a rant which calls out Monster Cable as just one example of why it opposes both SOPA and PIPA:

PHP.net will reportedly go dark tomorrow to protest SOPA and PIPA. PHP.net is the official home of PHP, the widely-used general-purpose and open source scripting language. According to this Reddit thread, the site will redirect to www.php.net/index-sopa.php, which offers the following message to visitors:

When asked if his company would go dark like Wikipedia on January 18 to protest SOPA and PIPA, Twitter CEO Costolo said on a tweet the idea would be silly.

"That's just silly. Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish," Costolo said.

Some criticism of that short statement followed, but Costolo explained it a little better in a subsequent tweet.

"..point was relative to shutting down our real-time global platform to protest/inform US congressional debate on a topic."

Wikipedia joins Reddit in a protest on January 18 to show that it is strongly against the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced that the site will go dark for 24 hours on Wednesday. Only the U.S. version of the site will go down during the protest, Wales said.

"Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday! #sopa," Jimmy Wales wrote on his twitter feed.

Earlier this month Major League Gaming announced that it opposed SOPA and moved its one-hundred domains off of GoDaddy for its initial support of the anti-piracy bill currently before the House of Representatives. Today the professional gaming league announced that it will join other companies by going dark on January 18 in protest of the bill.

From the official MLG site:

Earlier today Red 5 Studios announced that all services and websites related to its MMO Firefall would go dark on January 18, joining Reddit in its very public protest against SOPA and PIPA. Mojang studio head Markus Persson said that they will join in on that protest as well.

He announced via Twitter that Minecraft.net and Mojang.com will be taken offline on January 18 in protest of the anti-piracy bills being pushed by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas). Persson did not say how long the blackout would last.

Good Old Games has officially joined in the growing opposition to SOPA and PIPA. The DRM-free, classic gaming digital distribution site issued a rather lengthy statement today explaining why they think the anti-piracy bills before lawmakers are bad news for everyone except the entertainment industry.

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.

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.

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.

Those that prefer a little activism in their free Android apps will enjoy the new Boycott SOPA app, which enables users to scan barcodes on products and determine if the manufacturer supports SOPA. The App works exactly like any other app that allows you to scan a barcode - but instead it tells you which ones support SOPA, and therefore, which ones you shouldn't buy.