League Of Legends Creator Speaks Out Against SOPA Because Internet Freedom Is More Important Than Piracy

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More and more people are taking an official stance against SOPA because this form of legislation is very wrong. Brandon Beck, CEO of Riot Games, has published a blog post in order to announce that the League of Legends creator is not going to support SOPA in its current form even though the company doesn’t condone online piracy of any kind.

Riot Games is currently making efforts to prevent piracy, but SOPA is not the right answer to this matter. According to Mr. Beck, if SOPA passes through, then it will have a higher cost to the company, players, internet users, and websites than the beneficial effects in the package.

The League of Legends developer said that SOPA will most likely have an effect on websites which offer pirated games, however, it’s not worth it when the free speech will no longer be in the vocabulary of internet users. Eventually, SOPA will also make companies lose a lot of money while many people will lose their jobs.

The US Government will have the right to take down websites which are related to patent infringement, stolen intellectual property, piracy, or any kind of counterfeiting if SOPA will pass through.

Brandon Beck said that he is somewhat disappointed to talk about politics because Riot Games is a gaming company, but SOPA should be seen as a threat and should raise concerns to all the people in the United States.

League of Legends will be deeply affected by SOPA, Beck said. The 30 million LoL players might not be able to share their in-game videos on the internet due to copyright infringement issues. Also they’ll no longer be allowed to stream live videos when playing the game.

When asked whether Riot Games will follow Reddit’s example, Beck said that League of Legends will be online on January 18th. He did say that if things will worsen, then Riot Games will consider taking League of Legends down for 12 hours in a day.

On a side note, Reddit has officially announced that it will close its website on January 18th in order to raise the awareness on SOPA. The community will be down for 12 hours from 8AM to 8PM next week.

Beck added that there is only one way to win the battle against SOPA: public action. Riot Games’ CEO believes that SOPA can be killed if people will send letters to congressmen who are related to this bill. If they want to be elected this year, then they will have to meet the demands of the US people.

Riot Games has joined Major League Gaming in the list of companies who have spoken out against SOPA along with Epic Games, the Gears of War developer. These companies are aware that piracy is affecting sales, but SOPA is not the answer, they say.