Tech & Biz

SOPA & PIPA Blackout January 18, 2012: About SOPA & PIPA

by Jordan Yerman | January 17, 2012 at 07:59 am

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Major Websites Protesting Ridiculous Web Censorship Bills: Wikipedia, Reddit Blackout

Websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit, Twitpic, Mozilla, and other high-profile web destinations are going dark on January 18 to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate.

We've written about SOPA recently:

SOPA: Web Giants Oppose Web Censorship Bill

Basically, SOPA (which has been tabled but not killed) and PIPA protect the giant media companies who have been unwilling to adapt to changes in the marketplace landscape brought about by the internet in the last 15 years or so. PIPA and SOPA would give them irresponsibly broad power to take down sites accused of copyright infringement.

Take a moment to imagine how difficult compliance would be. For example, NowPublic has close to 3 million pages. Reddit has far more than that. Wikipedia? Forget about it.

How can site owners be sure that sites they link out to are not infringing someone else's copyright claims? What if you link to another site and that site then changes its page to include an "infringing link"?

You can see why Wikipedia, which relies on external links, is protesting with a blackout.

PIPA and SOPA are Silly Laws with Sinister Potential

As you see, it doesn't take more than a few seconds to show how silly these bills are.

Consider also the political effect: basically, every site that supports user-generated content would be targeted in the same manner as WikiLeaks. Such unilateral takedown legislation is already in place: Governments in China and Iran swear by it.

If you want to black out your site to protest SOPA and PIPA, here are some resources

If you think that SOPA and PIPA only target file-sharers and plagiarizers, you need to think again. We're going to quote author and blogger Cory Doctorow, who puts the argument against SOPA and PIPA in context:

Big Content haven't just declared war on Boing Boing and Reddit and the rest of the "fun" Internet: they've declared war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she's experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place -- as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings.

What's the point of the internet if it's controlled by only those corporations who own government access?

Among those going dark for January 18:

Reddit
Wikipedia (sorry, students: you'll need to use actual sources on the 18th)
XDA-Developer
Imgur
Mozilla
Boing Boing
The Cheezburger Network (I Can Has Cheezburger, FailBlog, Comixed, Etc)
... and more.

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recommend This comment thread is now closed

DevDia

at 13:07 on January 17th, 2012

Will this site be going dark or make any form of protest on the date?

Austin Hoffman (not verified)

at 12:52 on January 18th, 2012

apparently not...but I wish they had....we need AS MUCH help as we can get!! the odds are not in our favor right now

Jared262 (not verified)

at 14:01 on January 17th, 2012

Senator Orrin Hatch Co-Authored PIPA, this is how he feels about the Internet:www.dethronehatch.com/orrin-hatch-is-no-friend-of-the-internet/Hatch essentially advocates destroying your computer without due process.He also got tens of thousands of dollars for trying to push SOPA, which he Co-Sponsored:blog.experts-exchange.com/ee-tech-news/sopa-update-blackouts-pacs-and-a-little-bit-of-irony/

Austin Hoffman (not verified)

at 12:49 on January 18th, 2012

This is just terrible....SOPA is the equivalent of curing a headache with a guillotine. It may stop piracy, but it would shut down our economy and unconstitutionally erode our most basic freedoms in the process.I just hope that everyone realizes how important this is and does their part to save the internet & our economy! ...here is another good video that explains the consequences of SOPA pretty well:www.peeje.com/peeje-goes-strike-stop-web-censorship-bills-congress-209/1,000s of more websites have joined the force and went dark today, we need EVERYONES help!!!!