You may have noticed three things today:-
- Our new header – Henry has gone and has been replaced by Anne’s falcon. He was taking far too much of the limelight.
- We don’t have a blackout
- But we do have the Stop SOPA ribbon
Today, many websites around the world are either blacked out or are displaying the Stop SOPA ribbon in protest against the proposed US legislation that threatens internet freedom, i.e. the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). While I am not American, I recognise that this will have a huge effect on websites and blogs all over the world. I am completely against piracy and copyright infringement but things can be taken too far and laws can be abused. Can you imagine a world where websites get taken down because a forum member has posted a link to a video? Can you imagine a world without social media websites, YouTube, Wikpedia etc? There must be a better way to combat piracy and copyright issues, surely.
As Wikipedia explain on their Q&A page about the legislation: “SOPA and PIPA are a threat to Wikipedia in many ways. For example, in its current form, SOPA would require Wikipedia to actively monitor every site we link to, to ensure it doesn’t host infringing content. Any link to an infringing site could put us in jeopardy of being forced offline.” So, the legislation is a threat to many websites that allow comments, forums and interaction.
If you don’t know what I’m on about then here is a very informative video:-
There is also a petition to sign at Google – https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
