The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECTIP (PIPA)—currently before the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, respectively—are the focal points of protests across the Internet by some of the Web’s most recognizable sites, including Google and Wikipedia. SOPA and PIPA are designed to stop online piracy by enabling copyright holders to block access to domestic and foreign Websites that are distributing illegal content. However, critics are calling the legislation censorship, saying the laws would let the copyright holders blacklist Websites without (they claim) sufficient due process. Wikipedia, Google, Boing Boing, Reddit and many other popular Web properties either shut down their activities for a daylong period Jan. 18, or replaced their main page with some sort of text or symbol protesting SOPA and PIPA. However, despite the high-profile actions by entities opposed to the legislation, some equally powerful people are throwing their support behind SOPA and PIPA. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, whose companies produce a significant percentage of the content pillaged by Web pirates and who has been a vocal critic of what he perceives as widespread piracy, pushed back against Google in a Jan. 14 Tweet: "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying." The Jan. 18 protests represent among the most united actions to take place across the Web in some time. Whether that sways Congress to kill the legislation entirely is the question. At the moment, officials in the executive branch are sounding a note of caution about the legislation, with U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra writing in a co-authored note that authorities should avoid anything that could create new cyber-security risks or undermine the Internet’s architecture.
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Google
Google protested SOPA and PIPA by slapping a black bar over the "Google" logo on its search page, and accompanying it with a link reading, "Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!"
Wikipedia
Wikipedia opted to respond to SOPA and PIPA with a daylong shutdown. Users still needing to access Wikipedia information can search for a specific term on Google, hover their mouse over the preview and, from there, access the cached version.
Reddit
Like Wikipedia, Reddit chose to protest SOPA and PIPA by going dark and advocating that users call their congressperson, sign a petition or do both.
Wired
Some news Websites joined the protest game. Wired.com, for example, made a show of "censoring" the content on their main page with (removable) black bars.
The Oatmeal
Even comedy Website The Oatmeal protested SOPA and PIPA in its own special and NSFW, or not safe for work, way.
WordPress
WordPress offered bloggers a set of "black-out plug-ins" for either blacking out their Website entirely or, instead, applying a symbolic ribbon somewhere on the page.
Mozilla
Mozilla instituted its own "virtual strike" against SOPA and PIPA.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also wasted no time assembling a "Take Action" page.
icanhascheezburger
As a Website potentially affected in a deep way by SOPA and PIPA (thanks to its reliance on user-generated content), the ever-popular icanhascheezburger instituted a blackout.
Minecraft.net
A variety of other Websites, including Minecraft.net, protested against the legislation in their own ways.
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The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECTIP (PIPA)—currently before the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, respectively—are the focal points of protests across the Internet by some of the Web’s most recognizable sites, including Google and Wikipedia. SOPA and PIPA are designed to stop online piracy by enabling copyright holders to block access to domestic and foreign Websites that are distributing illegal content. However, critics are calling the legislation censorship, saying the laws would let the copyright holders blacklist Websites without (they claim) sufficient due process. Wikipedia, Google, Boing Boing, Reddit and many other popular Web properties either shut down their activities for a daylong period Jan. 18, or replaced their main page with some sort of text or symbol protesting SOPA and PIPA. However, despite the high-profile actions by entities opposed to the legislation, some equally powerful people are throwing their support behind SOPA and PIPA. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, whose companies produce a significant percentage of the content pillaged by Web pirates and who has been a vocal critic of what he perceives as widespread piracy, pushed back against Google in a Jan. 14 Tweet: "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying." The Jan. 18 protests represent among the most united actions to take place across the Web in some time. Whether that sways Congress to kill the legislation entirely is the question. At the moment, officials in the executive branch are sounding a note of caution about the legislation, with U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra writing in a co-authored note that authorities should avoid anything that could create new cyber-security risks or undermine the Internet’s architecture.