SOPA Strike

[filkertom]

The main page of Tom Smith Online will be dark for twelve hours today, starting pretty much right now, to join in the protest against SOPA and PIPA. These bills are screwed up beyond belief, and would forever change the internet as we know it -- and not in any good ways. The most eloquent take I've seen on it, with the best links, is that of Wil

Comments

[maiac]

I come to LiveJournal through the home page (vs., for example, directly to my own LJ or my Friends page). I just saw LJ's banner opposing the stupid bills.

Google has blacked out its logo. Daily Kos is redacted (no surprise there), Wikipedia is dark, even Cheezburger is popping up a window asking people to oppose the bill. Yahoo doesn't seem to be doing anything.

[saganth]

Wikipedia isn't dark. I just used it.

[filkertom]

I'm seeing Wikipedia in Firefox, but not in Chrome. The page is there, there's just some kind of redirect.

[saganth]

I'm using Chrome, too, and it's wholly accessible to me... Weird.

[alverant]

I understand there's a similar law called RWA which is basically the science version of SOPA. Because it does deal with scientific literature, it hasn't gotten as much attention. I'm not even 100% sure what it's about apart from thtt PZ hates it which is a pretty good indication that it's a Bad Thing.

[maiac]

I think what RWA is about is putting scientific research that our tax dollars paid for behind a paywall so corporations can profit from the people who need access to the information.

A few years ago, some senator tried to push through a bill forbidding the National Weather Service from providing its information to the public, so we wouldn't have a free alternative to Accuweather or the Weather Channel. This is the same thing.

[alverant]

He didn't know that Accuweather and Weather Channel used info from the NWS in the fist place. Figures an anti-science politician would do this. First you make people pay for information their tax dollars funded then when people complain use it as an excuse to defund scientific projects.

[maiac]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if he did know the commercial weather services got their information from the government. The priority would be making sure corporations could profit from the information.

[bayushisan]

I signed the petition.

I do think that artists and corporations have the right to protect their intelectual property from pirates but there has to be a better way than the proposed bills.

[alverant]

The question is how much damage does piracy actually DO financially to the owners. The media industry is also against buying used games/DVDs/CDs for the same reason. If the only way I would ever see [fill in the blank] would be to have it when it's really cheap (ie when the producers aren't making money off it), then is there a difference between the used media market and piracy?

[ladycheron]

ThinkGeek.com's twitter feed icon is blacked out, and their main site has links to an article on PIPA and SOPA co-sponsors abandoning the legislation.

http://mashable.com/2012/01/18/pipa-sopa-abandon-bill/

Amazon.com has a prominent link "Reasons to Oppose or Modify SOPA". Barnes & Noodles doesn't mention it.

eta:

I sent REAL PAPER MAIL to my senator and congresscritter back in December, and have been following with emails and petition signings. I hope it will have some effect.

[palenoue]

Here's a good place to see which congress critter supports SOPA & PIPA and who opposes it:

http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/