New York –– Wikipedia, the popular crowdsourced online encyclopedia, is the latest in joining the wave of online protests, has decide to “Blackout” its English language service for 24 hours on Wednesday in protest against the two Congressional bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act, often called SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, which is often called PIPA that aims to curtail copyright violations on the Internet is gathering momentum.
The bills has garnered fierce opposition from several corners of the technology industry. The crowdsourcing service will be the highest profile name to join an escalating campaign starting at midnight Eastern Time on Wednesday that will see it black out its page so that visitors will only see information about the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
Opponents say many of the clause in the legislation, including those that may force search engines and Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that offer or link to copyrighted material, would stifle innovation, enable censorship and tamper with the livelihood of businesses on the Internet.
Almost 800 members of Wikipedia have been opposing and voting whether the site should participate in a blackout since December.
Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, confirmed the site’s decision on Monday on Twitter, writing: “Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!”
Describing the protest, Wales said on Twitter at 6pm UK time Monday that “Final details under consideration but consensus seems to be for “full” rather than “soft” blackout!” Explaining the decision as one taken by the Wikipedia community, he said that “I’m proud to be able in some small way to have a leadership role against censorship. But the community gets the credit here”.
SOPA and PIPA — the Stop Online Piracy Act and Prevent Internet Piracy Act — are two identical pieces of legislation currently under consideration by the US government, which would have given it wide ranging powers to block US access to websites considered to infringe intellectual property law, including those that do not infringe directly but link to those that are considered to do so.
In a telephonic interview late Monday, Wales said that the Wikipedia community hoped to convey a clear message to lawmakers and regulators in Washington that people who worked on the Internet and used it daily were not happy about the potential effects of the bills.
“What will make a difference is for ordinary people to pick up the phone and send an e-mail or a letter to their representatives about this,” he said. “When you consider the magnitude of how many people use Wikipedia globally, there is a potential here for really creating some noise and getting some attention in the U.S.”
“This is a quite clumsily drafted legislation which is dangerous for an open Internet,” said Wales in an interview. “The government could tell us that we could write an entry about the history of the Pirate Bay but not allow us to link to it,” he said, referring to the popular file-sharing site. “That is a First Amendment issue.”
Wales mentioned that 460 million people around the world visit the site each month, and he estimated that the blackout could affect as many as 100 million people. Right now, the blackout is planned only for American visitors to the Web site. The Wikipedia community is still considering whether or not to limit access internationally to the English-version of the site, he said. Some international Wikipedia communities, including the one in Germany, have decided to post notices on their home pages leading to information about the protests, although they will remain functioning as usual.
Wales said the decision to take the site down is a most revolutionary move by Wikipedia. In October, the Italian version of Wikipedia staged a similar online protest in response to a corresponding bill proposed by the Italian Parliament, but the scale of Wednesday’s demonstration would be significantly broader, he said.
Google has repeatedly voiced that the bill goes far beyoud and could hurt investment. Along with other Internet companies such as Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and eBay, it has run advertisements in major newspapers urging Washington lawmakers to rethink their approach.
News of the White House’s comments prompted a prominent supporter of the bill News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch to slam the Obama administration.
“So Obama has submitted in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery,” he posted on his personal Twitter account Saturday. News Corp owns a vast array of media properties from Fox TV, the Wall Street Journal to Twentieth Century Fox studios.