“But that’s not really the point. The point is the bill is so over broad and so badly written that it’s going to impact all kinds of things that, you know, don’t have anything to do with stopping piracy.”

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg also weighed in on the debate, “Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.”

The cyber protest has been seen by many as a partial success with several high profile senators including Marco Rubio and Roy Blunt dropping their support of SOPA.

Today though rights holders and the MAFIAA (Music And Film Industry Association of America) fought back and had “cyberlocker” site MegaUpload knocked offline. The popular file sharing site has long been a thorn in the side of the entertainment industry and their desire to have it taken offline has been well documented. In October 2011 the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) submitted a list of rogue websites to the Office of the US Trade Representative. MegaUpload found itself included on the list.

The websites founder Kim Schmitz (aka Kim Dotcom) along with three colleagues were arrested in New Zealand at the request of US authorities. Six other individuals behind the website have also been charged with offences including “conspiracy to commit racketeering” and “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement”.

This latest turn of events is extremely worrying. Even without SOPA or PIPA it is still far too easy for the entertainment industry to cry foul play and have a whole website knocked off the internet. MegaUpload is a legal website and acts within the legal obligations set out by the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). So which website will be next RapidShare? MediaFire? 4Shared? FileSonic? All these sites operate is largely the same way as MegaUpload.

If SOPA did ever did become law other mainstream sites like YouTube, WordPress and Twitter would be gone before you can even say “conspiracy to facilitate the infringement of copyright”. The internet police are already here and it looks like they plan on sticking around for a while.

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Oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act!

Only recently the UK high court ordered BT to block access to Newzbin2 and now the floodgates have been opened. Further censorship is almost certainly just around the corner.

Following their previous success against Newzbin2 the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) and the MPA (Motion Picture Association) have written to BT requesting that they block access to The Pirate Bay, perhaps the most infamous of the BitTorrent websites. The torrent indexing site is already blocked in Denmark, Italy, Ireland and recently Belgium. Yet despite the mounting levels of censorship and the 2009 trial which found the sites founders guilty of “promoting copyright infringement” The Pirate Bay continues to function. In fact it prides itself in being “the worlds most resiliant torrent site”.

At the moment it is unclear if BT will voluntarily comply with the request from the BPI and MPA, but if they chose not to it seems likely that we will see a repeat of the long and drawn out case surrounding Newzbin2.

Chief Executive of the BPI Geoff Taylor is quoted as saying…

“Unlike legal music download sites, it exposes consumers to the risk of viruses, theft of personal information and inappropriate content. We would not tolerate Counterfeits ‘R’ Us on the High Street – if we want economic growth, we cannot accept illegal rip-off sites on the internet either. We hope that BT will do the right thing and block The Pirate Bay.”

Clearly Mr Taylor does not remember the breach of security at Sony earlier this year when the personal details of more than 70 million PlayStation Network subscribers were stolen. Additionally, to draw comparisons between the sale of counterfeit goods and The Pirate Bay is misleading. The Pirate Bay is an open service which does not charge its users to download any material.

The Pirate Party UK released a message on their Twitter page stating that…

“Censorship is here in the UK- now threats to block Pirate Bay. Unlike the govt we will stand up against attacks on the free web.”

The block to Newzbin2 has only been implemented at a DNS level and so is easy to circumvent. In fact the administrators of the site had already released a tool to do just that before the block even came into effect. It would come as very little surprise if the exact same thing happened with The Pirate Bay.

An interesting issue raised by this is where the Digital Economy Act fits in. The controversial act, which is still subject to judicial review, does allow for web blocking in clause 17/18. However this is something that must be implemented with the consent of parliament. The cases of Newzbin2 and The Pirate Bay simply do not fit in with this process.

In the end though this isn’t really about music or piracy, and in the grand scheme of things a website like The Pirate Bay doesn’t really matter. What this is about is the rights of UK citizens to look at whatever they want on the internet, after all they are paying for access. Additionally BT should not be expected to police the internet as a way of propping up the failing business models of the music and film industry.

The idea of censoring websites seems entirely incompatible with the democratic process. Whether or not you agree with what The Pirate Bay does becomes almost irrelevant. Censorship is not only imoral it is also potentially very dangerous.

At the start of the campaign you are treated to a brief video which talks you through all the events leading up to the North Korean invasion of America. This is all the background information you are given and nobody mentions it ever again. Instead the NPCs just wonder about complaining about how terrible everything is now. Perhaps if they had watched the opening video they wouldn’t have got themselves into this mess in the first place.

The first actual bit of gameplay happens in a dingy looking apartment belonging to generically named protagonist and ex-marine helicopter pilot Robert Jacobs. Yeah, they really couldn’t think of a better name than that. Anyway, Jacobs is milling around his apartment minding his own business when suddenly some angry looking and heavily armed North Korean troops smash down his door. The Koreans are rounding up people who they perceive as a threat and sending them to a detainment camp for re-education. Jacobs soon find himself in the back of a prison bus being driven through the town on Montrose, Colorado. On this journey through the ruined and bombed out town you witness Korean soldiers carrying out atrocities against civilians. It isn’t often that you see unarmed civilians included in war games but this sequence is quite powerful and paints a grim image of what war can be like for ordinary people. There is another scene later on in the game where you have to hide yourself in a mass grave in order to avoid being captured. However other than these two fairly grim encounters there is little else in terms of shocking moments which does make them seem like afterthoughts.

On the way to the detainment camp you are rescued by two resistance fighters, Connor, the all American hero and Rianna, a typical female video game character who complains a lot and can’t handle the horror of war despite quite happily gunning down hundreds of Korean soldiers.

You’re soon fighting your way through suburbia taking on wave after wave of enemy troops. The AI is inconsistent at best. Some soldiers will take cover behind cars of crates but others will quite happily stand out in the open just waiting to get gunned down. More than anything else the enemy rely on strength in numbers rather than fighting skill.

At your disposal you have a good range of weapons, including assault rifles, light machine guns and sniper rifles. Each has a variety of different attachments but unfortunately these cannot be changed. Instead you have to scout around for a weapon with an attachment that suits you. Having said that, because the enemy are so easy to kill there is always plenty of weapons and ammo to be found on the battlefield. There are also several levels in which you are given control of “Goliath”, a six wheeled armoured vehicle which you can give directions to and point out AI troops using a targeting device. It is a useful addition to your arsenal and tips the fighting significantly in your favour. However it can at times feel overpowered and leave you wondering exactly how the Korean army managed to conquer the United States in the first place.

There are a couple of levels in the game that seem totally out of place. In one you have to use stealth tactics to make your way through a camp of red necks. I use the word stealth in the loosest possible sense. It essentially involves walking very slowly and hiding behind burnt out cars. No exactly the kind of thing you would find in Splinter Cell (other stealth games are available). Simply put this level does not make any sense given the context of the rest of the game. You’ve quite happily spent the previous 3 or 4 hours blasting your way through the Korean Army and then this level comes along and completely takes the pace out of the game. It doesn’t serve to build tension because there is zero chance of you being caught by the enemy given the way the level is constructed. You simply have to sit crouched behind barriers/cars/walls until you are told to move to the next obstacle by your AI team mate. If you follow the instructions you will complete the level without fail.

At the beginning of the review I stated that the protagonist is an ex-marine helicopter pilot and this is mentioned at several points in the game during dialogue between your AI team mates. As it keeps getting brought up you’d think that maybe helicopters would play an important part in the games combat. Well if you though that you would be completely wrong. There is only one level in the game where you get to pilot of helicopter and even then it is one of the weakest parts of the game. The level feels out of place and much like “Goliath” the helicopters weapons are overpowered. The experience is not at all satisfying and once again breaks up the flow of the game.

The campaign can be completed in about five hours and the ending which takes place on the Golden Gate bridge feels anti climactic. It’s a little bit like the Modern Warfare 2 co-op level where you have to fight across a collapsing bridge, only nowhere near as fun.

The gunplay itself is good enough, but the pacing in poor and the AI characters have drone like personalities. The background story is a nice idea but isn’t developed enough to really grab your interest. The video games market is full of much better titles and I imagine that Homefront will soon be forgotten about.

5 out of 10

Back in 2010 ISPs Telenet and Belgacom stated that it was not up to them to decide which content their customers could and couldn’t access. The Belgian courts agreed and decided that blocking the website would be “disproportionate”. Understandably the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) was not best pleased with the original decision and launched an appeal, the result of which was heard today.

The new ruling stated that 11 domain names linked to The Pirate Bay must be blocked an the DNS level. This is a very basic form of web blocking and can be easily circumvented by connecting to the internet via a different Domain Name System such as OpenDNS or Google DNS.

The people behind The Pirate Bay seemed unfazed by the ruling. On their blog they posted…

“Today we learned that we’re being blocked – again! Yawn. When will they give up – we’re still growing despite (or perhaps because) all their efforts.”

The rest of the post talked about the various ways in which the block can be easily circumvented.

A Belgian organisation called NURPA which campaigns for citizens online rights and freedom of expression has condemned the ruling stating that it goes against an individuals rights to freely access information.

This will be seen as a small victory for rights holders but in reality will have very little effect on illegal file sharing. Anyone who is willing to do a quick Google search will quickly discover a way to circumvent the web block. Failing that they will simply switch to using an alternative torrent hosting website.

Belgium now finds itself alongside Italy and Denmark on the list of EU countries which block access to The Pirate Bay.

The only way to get hold of a PC game these days is either to order it from Amazon (other online retailers are available) or download it through a service like Steam. For me this is where the problem arises. I live in an area of the country where the broadband connection is shockingly bad, 2mbps on a good day, so downloading a whole video game is totally out of the question. I’d either have lost interest or a sequel would have been released before my initial download finished. Subsequently I buy all PC games through online retailers, which wouldn’t be so bad except I still have to use Steam to install them.

The idea of having all my video games stored in one client isn’t a problem in itself but I do take issue with the fact that Steam simply doesn’t work very well. It takes an unnecessarily long time to load, frequently updates itself without any visible improvements, crashes for no reason and sometimes games simply refuse to launch. Surely I can’t be the only person having these problems?

Now with the launch of Battlefield 3 just around the corner I have a new client to contend with, Origin. Formerly know as the EA Store it’s been rebranded and given an edgy new name.

Electronic Arts announced back in August that Battlefield 3 would not be available via Steam stating that, “the service restricts our ability to directly support players”. A likely story I’m sure. Crysis 2, another EA published title was also recently removed from Steam.

Now some may say that having two clients is a good thing for consumers because it encourages competition and will ultimately drive down prices. However, if the pattern of removing games from one service and making them exclusive to another continues then customers are at no advantage at all. Perhaps we’ll eventually see Activision release their own client as well and claim the exclusive distribution rights to Call of Duty.

There are still plenty of EA published titles available on steam but I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to see the more popular titles getting pulled.

The problem applies to games consoles as well. If you want to buy a digital copy of a Playstation 3 game you have to do so through the Playstation Store. The same goes for the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. There is simply no choice about which service you use and whichever way you look at it gamers are losing out.

Opinion amongst gamers seems very much divided in terms of which game will provide the better experience. PC gamers are usually very vocal in their opinions and seem to take great pleasure in discrediting popular titles. We mustn’t forget that the very first Call of Duty game was a PC exclusive released back in 2003. Since then titles have been released on consoles as well as the PC, much to the annoyance of the PC gaming elite. Many share the opinion that because a game is released on consoles as well as the PC it is automatically “dumbed down”. I’m not saying all PC gamers are of this opinion, I play games on the PC myself and am not of this particular opinion, but a quick look through a PC gaming forum will flag up numerous negative comments about the Xbox 360 and PS3. Titles such as Halo and Killzone are particular favourites for the PC gaming community to rip on. Granted console gamers and video game developers often don’t do themselves any favours but I will come to that later.

PC gamers first took major issue with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 when it was announced that the title would not support dedicated servers in multiplayer mode. To the community a move like this by Activision was cynical and could simply not be tolerated. It led to claims of lazy developing by Infinity Ward who no longer cared about the PC version of the game and were only interested in making a “dumbed down” console game.

The following year Treyarch released Call of Duty: Black Ops which saw the return of dedicated servers in multiplayer mode. In spite of this PC gamers still found ways to complain about the game. Common complaints seem to go along the lines of, “it’s just the same game every year released in a different box”. To be fair to the PC gaming community the Call of Duty games are very similar, but aren’t all first person shooters essentially the same? The vast majority of titles have you running down very linear paths/corridors and murdering anything that gets in your way. The difference with Call of Duty is that it actually does it quite well. The graphics are good, the gameplay mechanics are fine tuned and the whole experience is very cinematic.

Another recurring theme is the constant comparison to Half Life 2 (2004) which is regarded as the Holy Grail of PC games. If something isn’t as good as Half Life 2 then it probably isn’t worth playing. Yes, Half Life 2 is a great game but we can’t keep constantly comparing other games to it.

Having said all this the problem is not always in the minds of PC gamers, console gamers also play a major part. The attitude often expressed towards console gamers is that they are stupid and consequently don’t mind playing “dumbed down” games. Clearly this can’t be true of all console owners, but there are always certain individuals who like to ruin the online gaming experience of others. Multiplayer matches are often frequented my annoying 12 year old Americans or people who feel the need to make racist and inappropriate comments. The PC gaming audience generally seems more mature, even if it does like to think of itself as elite.

Developers as well are often at fault. The best way to develop a video game is to make it for the PC and then port it to the consoles. That way people playing on the PC get the best possible experience without the console crowd losing out. Unfortunately the status quo these days if to develop the game for a “lead” console and then port it to the PC. Consequently developers don’t take advantage of the PCs extra processing power and the resulting game feels watered down and badly made.

If Electronic Arts are to be believed then the PC is actually the lead platform for Battlefield 3 which is a rare treat for the PC gaming elite. Infinity Ward on the other hand are using the consoles as the lead platform, although dedicated servers will return in the PC version of Modern Warfare 3.

Regardless of which game people choose to buy both will present a great experience. Amongst all the bickering and pointless comments it is easy to forget that Call of Duty is just a video game. Pick it up and play it it’ll be better than 90% of other shoot ‘em ups released this year, and if you’re lucky you might even enjoy it.

Whilst the BBC will continue to broadcast all races on Radio 5 Live there have been conflicting statements in regards to the highlights package that the BBC will broadcast. When the deal was first announced at the Hungarian Grand Prix in July, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said he had been “assured” by Bernie Ecclestone that the BBC would broadcast full re-runs of the races which they did not show live.

More recently Bernie Ecclestone has been quoted as saying the BBC will only show a 75 minute highlights package. Whether these will be broadcast on TV or reserved for the BBC F1 website is also unclear.

If the BBC were allowed to show full re-runs of races then it would surely have an effect on the number of new Sky subscribers. Casual F1 viewers may simply lose all interest in the sport rather than paying for a Sky subscription.

There is also the possibility that the deal breaches the Concorde Agreement, the contract between the FIA and the Formula 1 teams. The contract says that races in key markets should be free to air where possible.

Tyre manufacturer Pirelli have also expressed their concern that viewing figures could drop as a result of BBC/Sky deal.

“What we need to understand is whether the large audience we currently enjoy in Formula One will be maintained. I think we also need to understand exactly how this is being done.” Said Phil Hembery the companies motor sport director.

Regardless of how things work out many Formula 1 fans will still feel very hard done by. The 2011 season has been one of the most exciting in recent years but from next season fans will have to pay.

The news network also calls upon the opinions of so called “experts”. They quote Dr. Jerry Weichman of the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Southern California, as saying…

““If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm’s explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant,”

Worse still, Carol Lieberman, a psychologist and author says that…

“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games,”

In Bulletstorm the player is rewarded for extravagant kills. Essentially the more bizarre the kill the more points you gain. This could be anything from yanking an enemy towards you in slow motion and blowing his head off with a shotgun, to firing a sticky grenade at your foe and watching him explode into a bloody pulp. The violence is all very visceral and exaggerated, with the most over the top kills given risqué names such as “topless” or “gang bang”.

The games publisher Electronic Arts released the following brief statement…

“Bulletstorm has been given an “M” rating by the ESRB, and we have adhered to all their guidelines in regards to the marketing and promotion of Bulletstorm.”

The games developers, Epic and People Can Fly have declined to make any comment on the matter.

The violence and strong language in Bulletstorm is no different to anything that we would see on TV or at the cinema in a film like Hostel or Saw, and yet these types of media receive little or no attention from the conservative press.

To date there is no respected published work which has linked violence in video games with violence in real life.

SOURCES:
Fox News
Gamespot

Talk Talk and BT are making four main challenges against the bill. Firstly, that the government failed to give the European Commission sufficient notice for it properly to scrutinise the legislation as required. Secondly, they argue that the Act does not comply with existing EU legislation on data protection and privacy. Thirdly, that the Act is incompatible with existing EU e-commerce legislation, and finally that the provisions of the Act are disproportionate in their impact on ISPs, businesses and consumers.

Now the Open Rights Group (ORG), which campaigned tirelessly against the Act, has been granted permission to put forward their case in the review. Whilst the likes of BT and Talk Talk are mostly concerned with the economic impact of the Act, the Open Rights Group worries that the legislation threatens freedom of speech and individual privacy.

On the Open Right Group website Peter Bradwell writes…

“The DEA is a manifestation of a mistaken approach to copyright that just won’t allow people to take advantage of incredible new opportunities for creation, discussion and debate.”

The granting of this judicial review, which is due to take place in February, has already caused heavy delays to the Digital Economy Act which was originally approved by parliament in April 2010.

SOURCES:
Open Rights Group
Olswang LLP