There’s going to be a protest on the ‘Net the 24 hours starting at midnight EST involving a number of major sites going dark for 24 hours. These include English language Wikipedia, Boing Boing, Reddit and others. Here’s an ABC News article on the subject.
Many other organizations are supporting the action, though not necessarily going dark. (Planet Waves is discussing the issue and will make a decision in the morning what to do at least for part of the day Wednesday. Your comments are welcome.) Here is what Sue Gardner, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation had to say about the action:
“Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate – that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.”
Here’s the issue as I understand it. The powers that be — in this case, the entertainment industry, its lobbyists who buy time influencing Congress, and the lawmakers themselves (it’s no longer appropriate to call them “representatives”) — are raising an objection to internet piracy. However, measures that would be used to prevent copyright infringement open the door to other forms of censorship in the name of protecting intellectual property — though without actually doing so.