Stop SOPA/PROTECT IP act : Hideously Bad For Video Gamers

If a pair of bills on Capitol Hill, called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP, pass, you could be fined and thrown in jail for streaming your video game speed runs or game play. Machinima, or videos created using in-game tools such as in Red vs. Blue, may never have come about if SOPA/PROTECT IP were in place.
There are also serious "due process" issues with SOPA/PROTECT IP.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) presently mandates that a take-down notice regarding potential infringement must first be sent to the Internet service provider or host, which then must comply, if it wants to retain its so-called "safe harbor" protection.

"PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship . These bills lack the provisions requiring the providers to put the material back up following a counter notice. Instead, the incentives are for service providers to keep the content down. The accused would then need to defend themselves. this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites "by accident," mistakenly, or for NOT doing "enough" to protect the interests of Hollywood.

The legislation also allow Internet companies hosting the content to arbitrarily set standards regarding various classes of works and amateur performers and demand removal of content or petition the government to outright block access to websites. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples' sites, including slowing down your connection.

Internet service providers (ISPs) that are part of a corporation which creates content, such as Comcast, could also then use these laws for anti-competitive practices, arbitrarily enforcing/not enforcing potential infringements of their content or their competitors.

SOPA/PROTECT IP would also strip the limited defense websites enjoyed under DMCA. Tumblr.com, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Blogger and Wordpress, which used to be immune from prosecution for the content posted on them, would now need to monitor every communication, if they wanted to avoid liability. This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks..."

The experts warn that many of the tools and stated goals of both the government and business related to prevention of cyber attacks and Internet security would be undermined by these bills.

That's right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality. SOPA/PROTECT IP also relies on copyright holders setting arbitrary standards regarding economic impact and prosecution for various classes of works and amateur performers.