At the risk of dipping into politics or speaking on behalf of the site administrators, I'd like to urge every SAS member to contact their governments about the proposed U.S. laws being pushed as the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act.
If these bills become law, big entertainment companies (like, say, UbiSoft) could unilaterally restrict access to, or force the shutdown of, sites which they claim violate copyright laws or promote piracy (like, say, certain modding sites we all love).
Details of what SOPA and PIPA could do to internet freedom here:
https://www.eff.org/ https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_morePractically, although the SAS server is registered in Canada, and many of the admins are European or African, SOPA could affect SAS by:
- Making it illegal for U.S. citizens to transfer money to the site.
- Make it illegal for people outside the U.S. to transfer money to the site using U.S. based electronic funds transfer sites like Paypal.
- Allow anyone to force U.S.-based web hosts (e.g., Time Warner) or search engines (e.g., Google) to restrict access to the site due to allegations of copyright infringement or piracy. This means that if you live in the U.S., or access the web through a U.S. based ISP, you could be prevented from viewing SAS or similar sites.
- Make it illegal for people living in the U.S. to transmit anything which might possibly violate copyright (e.g., videos with copyrighted music playing the the background) to the site.
**WHAT TO DO**
* If You Are A U.S. Citizen:
- Contact your congresscritters. There are a number of online petitions circulating. You only need to sign one, as long as you've made sure it will go to all the right people (i.e., both senators and your local congressional representative).
Online petitions
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ https://blacklist.eff.org/Wikipedia also has a petition circulating. It will load automatically if you search Wikipedia today (18 January 2012).
* If you are not a U.S. Citizen:
- Don't assume that you're immune to SOPA or PIPA. If you access U.S. based web sites (like, say, Google, YouTube or Mediafire), you'll be affected if those sites are forced to shut down or censor themselves. Also, SOPA and PIPA set a bad example for countries which want to impose government censorship on the web, like China, Iran, or even Russia.
- Contact your local State Department or Ministry of Foreign Affairs and register your disapproval with what the U.S. Congress is doing.
- Contact your local U.S. Embassy and register your disapproval.
- Be polite and concise in your message/email, but stress the chilling effects that SOPA and PIPA would have on the Internet in your country should the U.S. pass these laws.
Sadly, there aren't formal protest sites that I know of in countries outside the U.S. You might need to do a bit of web surfing to find an online petition aimed to the right people, or the appropriate email addresses and phone numbers.
