Zynga doesn't like SOPA, and says so through its With Friends games

But really, who does? SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act snaking its way through Congress, stands to transform the Internet in the worst way. Zynga joined a number of traditional game companies like Epic Games, Red 5 Studios, Minecraft creator Mojang and more today in stating that it is against SOPA and its terribly similar counterpart, PIPA, or the Protect IP Act.

"While we support the goal of stopping foreign web sites from engaging in copyright infringement, we believe there are more effective and targeted ways to deal with these problems without censoring the Internet," the FarmVille creator wrote in a blog post. "The overly broad provisions we've seen in the pending SOPA and PIPA bills could be used to target legitimate US sites and freeze innovation at a time when it is needed most."

For the uninformed, SOPA is a bill that was presented to Congress back on Oct. 26 2011 by House Judiciary Committee Chair and Texas Republican Lamar Smith and 12 co-sponsors. It's counterpart, PIPA, was introduced around the same time as SOPA. While SOPA will not be discussed again until February, PIPA could be voted on as early as next week.

Regardless, both anti-piracy bills would effectively grant content creators (film studios, music labels, etc.) terrifying, enormous power over any website that posts copyrighted content. Yes, and that includes this social and casual games blog. Gizmodo has posted a necessarily informative and alarming primer on the issue.

[Image Credit: Zynga]

What do you think of Zynga's public stance against SOPA and PIPA? What do you plan to do about it? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.