I don't know if SOPA or PIPA will have an impact on the presidential election, but it is disconcerting to note that the person serving as the spokesperson of the Democratic party is listed as a supporter of the Stop Online Piracy Act. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D- representing Florida's 20th District) is the current chair of the Democratic National Committee and is listed as a supporter of SOPA at ProPublica.org.

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."

What level of commitment does the Entertainment Software Association have in the anti-piracy bills before lawmakers? About $190,000's worth according to a Kotaku report.

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.

MSNBC's Chris Hayes is the first major cable network to actually stop pretending SOPA / PIPA don't exist and have an actual discussion about it on television. (for those having trouble with the video, you can find it here). Gasp. The debate on the bills before lawmakers are between guests NBCUniversal lawyer Rick Cotton, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

The White House has finally responded to a petition submitted by citizens expressing everything from concern to outright opposition to both SOPA and PIPA. Today the official web site for the White House has a rather lengthy post on these bills. The short story is that it seems like good news for those who oppose these bills in their current forms. From the Whitehouse.gov site:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) brings some good news for those against the Stop Online Piracy Act: he has decided that he won't allow it to come to the floor of the House for a vote unless there is some real consensus on the bill. If this tells us anything it is that the American people have flooded House members with phone calls and emails complaining about this bill and how it is being fast-tracked by some members with power like sponsor Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

Bungie, the company who made a game series you might be vaguely familiar with (Halo) has come out publicly against SOPA. The company posted a statement on its official site highlighting its strong opinion about the anti-piracy and rogue web site bills being considered by lawmakers in Washington.

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.

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:

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.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has announced that it will listen to a handful of experts on January 18.

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.

What would Destructoid's Jim Sterling be like if SOPA were to become the law of the land? Jim imagines that future in the latest episode of the Jimquisition on The Escapist. Jim calls it speculative fiction, but we call it plausible reality - even if ever so slightly. You can check it out on The Escapist or watch the latest episode to your left.

Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan issued a short statement today on his official House website announcing that he strongly opposes the Stop Online Piracy Act and says that if it comes up for a vote on the floor of the House he will vote against it. While some credit a campaign on Reddit to oppose him in his upcoming election bid by supporting his Democratic opponent (which more than likely did have some affect on his decision), chances are he also got an earful from constituents that hate the bill sponsored by Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

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.

If you really want to know who supports SOPA, and you are a Chrome user, then you might want to download this Chrome extension created by Minneapolis developers Andy Baird and Tony Webster.

Since there has been all this talk about SOPA as it relates to GoDaddy, we thought it would be appropriate to point out that Rackspace - the company that hosts our servers (as well as the servers of GameJobs.com, TheECA.com, and ECA Today) - publicly came out against the Stop Piracy Online Act late last month. We thought we'd share the statement posted here from CEO Lanham Napier:

In a pre-Consumer Electronic Show interview with VentureBeat, Gary Shapiro, chief executive and president of the Consumer Electronics Association, says that he is not happy with the way the Stop Online Piracy Act is being rammed through the Senate. The man at the top of the trade group representing the electronics industry adds that SOPA is "shocking."