On Wednesday, January 18, from 8am to 8pm EST, MAKE – and Tampa Bay Maker Faire – joins all of O’Reilly Media, Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, Tucows, Twitpic, and others in going “dark” to protest the SOPA and PIPA bills now before the House and Senate. Even Google is joining in , not going dark, but providing information about the bills and how they’ll affect the Internet.
[Well, we were *supposed* to go dark, but the WordPress code doesn't seem to be working and as with all things Internet, there are no guarantees - of stopping piracy or anything else - so I'll lodge my protest in the open, unless this site randomly disappears when the code decides to work! ] (It worked!)
MAKE and those listed here are not along in opposition to SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (H.R. 3261), and PIPA, “PROTECT IP Act” (S. 968), which MAKE deems “potentially poisonous to many of the things that we stand for. Not only has the internet had a hugely positive impact on our economy, our culture, and our ability to disseminate media and information, but it has allowed people from all walks of life and all areas of concern to become publishers, media producers, journalists, educators, doers, makers. We think that legislation like that being proposed would have a chilling effect on all of this.”
These bills are also opposed by the White House and over 1000 companies, organizations and individuals. Check out the video below for a closer look at SOPA and Protect IP.
Additionally, Stop American Censorship is one of many organizations providing tools and letter writing campaigns to help interested individuals speak out.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
