What is SOPA? and why Tico Blogs went “dark” today
Thousands of web pages on the Internet decided to go dark today in protest against two bills before the legislature of the United States which could potentially limit your right to access and share digital content -such as the article you are now reading. The bills in question are known by seemingly harmless acronyms, SOPA and PIPA, which respectively stand for the Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property Acts. SOPA is before the House of Representatives, while PIPA is before the Senate. Several major Internet properties such as Google, the Mozilla Foundation, Wikipedia, and WordPress have joined in the protests by either blacking out their content or obscuring some features.
The effort is being coordinated by Fight for the Future, an anti-SOPA coalition of Internet activists and business people who are concerned that proposed laws are just the first step in a series of measures that could one day bring full-blown censorship to their browsers. The most notable action against SOPA and PIPA comes from the now-ubiquitous Wikipedia, a site that opted to completely obscure access to its English content. While versions of Wikipedia in other languages, including Spanish, were not affected by the blackout, it is important to note that the English Wikipedia has become a starting point for research, knowledge, reference, and education around the world.
Other notable sites that took part in the demonstration include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Flickr, Vimeo, Wired, the personal sites of musician Peter Gabriel and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, popular classified ad and marketplace Craigslist, and even the official web pages of two U.S. Representatives.
At least one website in Costa Rica joined the anti SOPA and PIPA protests in solidarity. Blogging platform Ticoblogger partially blocked some of the content on their blogs, including the deeply influential El Infierno en Costa Rica, a blog that has been praised for its great use of free speech to advance issues of national and social interest. Ticoblogger explained to La Nacion that they “believe in a free Internet, where freedom of expression and due process are observed without trampling upon the rights of many others.”
Both SOPA and PIPA are being touted by their supporters as legislation that will empower the authors of intellectual property with sophisticated tools to prevent webmasters and others from pirating digital media such as audio, still images, video, and even this article. Opponents claim that the measures go too far and will only impede the intellectual development of societies, and that while it’s ok for governments to get involved in stopping piracy, such as when ICE has blocked the popular filesharing application Ares in the past, there are already enough copyright laws in place in the United States and around the world. Legislative actions like SOPA and PIPA could end up fragmenting the Internet, something that would go against its very nature.
The worst case scenario would be that overzealous digital content providers could deploy commercial versions of the Great Chinese Firewall, an ominous censorship system that is difficult for Internet users in China to overcome.
You can download the official PDF files from the US Government for SOPA and PIPA by clicking on the corresponding words in this sentence.
Here is a video over view for those who would prefer this medium.