Around the begining of January, there was a
rumor that some of the Internet's most popular sites would stage a coordinated black-out in order to protest the SOPA and Protect-IP acts working their way through Congress in the United States. I of course, started immediately planning how smaller sites can participate. The bills are aimed at shutting down websites facilitating Copyright and Trademark infringement, yet fall outside US jurisdiction. The bills are controversial because it is believed that they will erode the DNS system, which resolves human-readable domain names into IP addresses.
I came to the conclusion that encouraging people to contact their congress person is pointless for those living outside the United States. However, if critical mass is reached, having an international campaign of people calling their local representatives may result in diplomatic pressure on the United States. Smaller sites can serve an important role by making up the
Long Tail of Internet usage. They provide a contingency plan for raising awarenes if the big players decide that a temporary black-out will cost them too much money.
On Wednesday,
reddit set a date:
January 18, 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC).Unfortunately, this conflicts with the
General Meeting on January 18, starting at 8pm EST. Since a new board is being elected, I feel that the forum should stay open so that the candidates' platforms can be read prior to the vote (for each the
Political Board and
Executive Board). Else, a notice should be (e-)mailed out to all members informing them of both the upcomming elections and black-out window.
I propose that the Pirate Party participate in at least a partial black-out. I may be able to write a white text on black background theme for the forum if it stays open.The board of another organization I am involved with has narrowly agreed to a complete black-out during the above time. They have
not however authorized me to encourage people to contact their Member of Parliament (due to concerns over advocacy).
For my own website, I will be replacing the index pages with an anti-SOPA message, and changing the default style-sheet on my remaining pages to "inverted.css". It may stay that way for a week or more. By Tuesday of next week, I hope to have read the bill so that I can understand the implications for sites such as mine with a .CA domain name, hosted in Canada, but using an ARIN IP address (considered "domestic" by the bill). I also hope to understand the implications of sites such as the one I am involved with with a .CA domain name, but are hosted in the United States. One
article suggests that The Pirate Bay, the presumed target of the bill, may be exempt by virtue of having a "domestic" domain name (such domains were granted exemptions so that the bill would only target foreign US-directed sites).
In addition to reddit, Wikipedia's
SOPA initiative page may be a good resource for organizing the Internet-wide black-out.
Apparently
LoLcats are being knocked off the Internet in protest as well.
