SOPA and the Wikipedia blackout

Congress wants to tighten up piracy laws but online giants are fighting back

Journalists beware! Thanks to US Congressmen and their meddling SOPA and PIPA bills, online encyclopedia and cut-and-paste word-count fluffer Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours.

Founder Jimmy Wales and other critics of the bills say the legislation will mean to an end to web freedom and the Internet as we know it.

Defenders claim it's needed to tackle rampant online piracy and other IP abuses.

Meanwhile, many more worry they won’t be able to download stuff for free any more.

So what does SOPA mean for you? How will you survive without Wikipedia for a day? And will journalists be forced to do some work for a change?

The legislation

The House of Representatives are considering the Stop Online Piracy (SOPA), or at least it was until recent pressure forced them to delay a vote on it. The Senate is mulling the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). Together they propose five-year jail terms for anyone who streamlines copyrighted content without permission ten or more times within six months.

Defenders

Friends of the bill include House Republicans, Hollywood and the music industry, who say piracy has torpedoed record and movie sales. Rupert Murdoch is also a fan and used Twitter last week to blast Obama for speaking out against the bill. So far, showbiz’s biggest stars such as Justin Beiber and Beyonce have stayed silent on the issue, perhaps fearing the same backlash suffered by pint-sized Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who caught flack when he tried to close Napster.

Critics

Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and most Internet sites are dead against the legislation. Under its rules, content holders would be responsible for removing copyrighted material from their sites. To block users, a system used in China and Iran to wipe undesirables from the Web will be used, something Silicon Valley’s braided hippies find anathema to their big-love and bigger profit mantra. Twitter is also against it but called Wikipedia’s 24-hour blackout “silly.”

How to survive

The Washington Post has issued a handy guide to surviving the blackout while WebProNews has a more detailed one on what Web masters can do to support the protest but keep their Google numbers up.