Wikipedia and SOPA

[AiA in Atlanta]

Is Wikipeida blacked out in AUS as well in protest of SOPA?

[boxy]

It redirected me to a message about the US legislation.

I just went back, and found another source.

[IQS.RLOW]

Not hard to get around

Occucpy teh intardwebz...but don't mess with our revenue

People can still sit on their fat arses and protest rather than get off them

[AiA in Atlanta]

The vote in the US senate was postponed because of online protests. The internet truly is leveling the playing field.

[The Artist formerly known as Sappho]

The vote in the US senate was postponed because of online protests. The internet truly is leveling the playing field.

The internet is very influential.

The legislation is opposed by the Mozilla Corporation,[34] Facebook,[34] Electronic Frontier Foundation,[35] Yahoo!, eBay, American Express, reddit, Google,[36] Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch,[37] English Wikipedia,[38], Uncyclopedia[citation needed], and many more. Internet entrepreneurs including Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley signed a letter to Congress expressing their opposition to the legislation.[39] The Tea Party Patriots have argued that the bill "is bad for consumers".[40] A letter of opposition was signed by 130 technology entrepreneurs and executives and sent to Congress to express their concern that the law in its present form would "hurt economic growth and chill innovation in legitimate services that help people create, communicate, and make money online".[41] English-language Wikipedia sites joined other Internet sites in protesting the PIPA and SOPA legislation by staging a "blackout" of service for 24 hours on January 18, 2012. Many websites protested, including: Wikipedia, CNet and Cheezburger network sites. Some websites denied access to their websites altogether.

A site like this, which has questionable practices, should be alarmed at what the US is proposing.

The Protect IP Act (PIPA) says that an "information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order". In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending "Internet site".[15]

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a United States (bill) proposed by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith (Republican) to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Provisions include the requesting of court-orders to bar advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with infringing websites, and search engines from linking to the sites, and court orders requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The law would expand existing criminal laws to include streaming of copyright material, imposing a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

I'm still playing what if... so have no opinion.

[Outlaw Yogi]

I was hoping hackers like Anonymous et al would shut down sites of pollie sponsors of the bill and the corporate medias on who's behalf they're doing it.

[boxy]

That would just encourage them to "get tough".

[Outlaw Yogi]

That would just encourage them to "get tough".

And then the hackers should steal the pollies identities.

EDIT ADDITION - On a serious note, I suspect the pollie sponsors are more concerned with Wikileaks type disclosure of the pollies' corrupt activities, than any genuine regard for intellectual property.