Wikipedia joins web blackout in Sopa Act protest

[DigitalBuddha]

Wikipedia plans to take its English-language site offline on Wednesday as part of protests against proposed anti-piracy laws in the US.

The user-generated news site Reddit and the blog Boing Boing have also said they will take part in the "blackout".

The sites' webmasters are opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) being debated by Congress.



Boycott here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16590585

[Caesar dude]

Another site that is British based and is joining the protest is Grahamhancock.com

Is Oliver planning a similar stand? I would support it for sure...could do with an internet break! 

Peace

[BikerDude]

It's easy to see that, as usual, this is a thinly veiled gift to corporations who sponsor our governments elections.
The important thing to remember about the "fight" that the record and movie companies are fighting is that they are NOT fighting piracy. They are working to maintain their own relevance.
Record companies where once absolutely necessary.
An artist needed them to create an album and to distribute it.
Now that is no longer the case. So if you look carefully at the legislation that they typically write for the congressman who sponsors the bill you will see that they introduce certain things that attempt to maintain their position.
For instance they had in the past attempted to legislate that ALL copyrighted materials would need to legally include digital rights management measures to ensure that it could not be copied.
It was only when you looked at it carefully that you could see how insidious this was.
In essence an artist could not CHOOSE to give away their own work.
And in fact for all practical purposes they could not create and distribute their own work legally since it put the new requirement on them that they either engineer their own digital rights management software of obtain it from somewhere else.
Basically the long and the short of it was that it meant to take away freedom and legislate that the only way to create and distribute content was through large corporations.
I'm sure lurking under the covers of this are similar pitfalls.

[DigitalBuddha]

Well, it looks like the enemy (the US Congress) is beginning to stand down in the face of greater power............



Sopa: US backers end support for anti-piracy bill

Eight US lawmakers have withdrawn their backing from anti-piracy laws, amid "blackout" protests on thousands of internet sites.

Two of the bill's co-sponsors, Marco Rubio from Florida and Roy Blunt from Missouri, are among those backing away.

Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and blog service WordPress are among the highest profile sites to block their content.



Story here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16623831

[WabiSabi]

Very cool outcome ... for the time being ...

There's still a significant part of the bill (SOPA 150) that has to go to it's deserved slow and painful death as well ...

I for one would be most happy to see it dying via being chomped on publicly by a gang of rabid marmots!!!

[DigitalBuddha]

Very cool outcome ... for the time being ...

There's still a significant part of the bill (SOPA 150) that has to go to it's deserved slow and painful death as well ...

I for one would be most happy to see it dying via being chomped on publicly by a gang of rabid marmots!!!

Fucking eh! Across this line, Congress, YOU DO NOT!!