Why I’m Blacked Out

Google’s doing it:

Wikipedia is doing it:

(and causing quite the uproar on Twitter, I might add)

Reddit, Craigslist, Boing-Boing, WordPress, and thousands of other smaller sites are also doing it.

And so am I, even though I’m Canadian.

The Stop Online Piracy Act might be an American bill, but it has very, very bad consequences for everyone, everywhere. Essentially, SOPA would allow intellectual property owners (Hollywood, essentially) to more or less destroy any site (homeland or foreign) they have a copyright claim against.

And then there’s PIPA, SOPA’s little sister, which seeks to make websites – not users – responsible for pirated content.

“Internet policy shouldn’t be set by Hollywood.” – Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder

What does this mean, exactly?

It means say goodbye to a free, open internet.

Right now, if I upload copyrighted content to YouTube, I’m held accountable. With PIPA, YouTube becomes accountable for what *I* uploaded. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? And while the big sites – Facebook, YouTube, etc – have the means to deal with these kinds of copyright claims, many smaller sites don’t.

And under SOPA, if a torrent site hosted in a foreign country is offering movie downloads, the production company can (among other things) demand Google remove them from the search index, demand financing to the site in question is pulled, and tell ISP’s to block the site.

Yeah, as in Rogers/AOL/Insert-ISP-Here can decide what YOU, as a consumer, and as an internet user, are ALLOWED TO SEE AND ACCESS.

Sounds pretty big brother-ish, right?

What’s worse is the consequences this can have beyond torrent sites or streaming video content. Those pushing this bill through are claiming it’s only aimed at these sites that are pirating software, movies, and creative content.

What they’re NOT telling you is that the bill can – and very likely will, if passed – extend beyond those boundaries and start affecting us, as internet users, and start affecting “the little guy.” Basically ANY site the powers-that-be decide infringes on a copyright can be pulled – and just because I’m Canadian doesn’t mean I’m untouchable – that’s the problem, actually. This bill would be essentially be granting the American Government control over foreign hosted content, and, according to Google, “turn the internet into a police state”.

I have to agree.

What I am disappointed with, however, is that Google chose to only blackout on the American site. Though we as foreigners don’t have a direct say in this – I mean, I don’t have an American representative I can contact – but if passed it WILL be affecting us (and our daily internet habits). People – all people, whether American or not – need to be aware of how bad this bill really is. It’s going to allow the American government extraordinary – and worse, loosely defined – power to control the content and information available to us online.

It will essentially, and effectively, kill the internet.

Overly dramatic? Maybe, but maybe not.

I’d rather not find out.

I’m only just scraping the surface of this entire issue – for a more in-depth (but still easy to follow) look at the issue, check out this Gizmodo post, visit Wikipedia’s Q&A about why they’re blacked out, or checkout the SOPA Blackout page.

And, of course – consider joining the blackout and showing your support via Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

 

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Tagged as: blackout, Canada and PIPA, Canada and SOPA, foreign SOPA, PIPA, SOPA, SOPA and foreign countries, SOPA blackout, Stop Online Piracy Act, what SOPA means for Candians, wikipedia down