Wikipedia went dark, Google blotted out its logo, and other popular websites planned protests today to voice concern over legislation in the US Congress (pictured) intended to crack down on online piracy. Wikipedia shut down the English version of its online encyclopedia for 24 hours to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) introduced in the House of Representatives and the Senate version, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The founders of Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, and other internet giants said in an open letter last month the legislation would give the US government censorship powers similar to those used by China, Malaysia, and Iran. This is worrying because SOPA and PIPA are badly drafted legislation that won't be effective in their main goal (to stop copyright infringement), and will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet. They put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. And, SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression. I hope Obama vetoes this rubbish before it causes any real damage.
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