Wikipedia goes dark, Google joins protest of SOPA

Wikipedia is protesting SOPA anti-piracy legislation.

If you?re looking for information on Wikipedia or some other websites on today, don?t expect to find them up and running.

Several sites, with Wikipedia among them and Google? ? Google Latest from The Business Journals Apple's iPhone 4S helped Q4 smartphone sales explodeWebsites go dark to protest anti-piracy billsWire dispute hangs up Google Fiber in KCK Follow this company lending a hand, are going dark or bringing awareness to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.

The protest comes after the White House weighed in, saying it wouldn?t support the proposed legislation after the tech community rallied support in several online petitions.

The tech community, specifically those with a heavy online presence, have been going to war against the movie and record industry over what are appropriate ways to curb Web-based intellectual property theft.

There aren?t a lot of people among either of those groups who think Internet piracy is a good thing, but it?s a matter of degrees in how to deal with it. Tech businesses are flexing some serious muscle in order to kill the bill. Their argument is that what is proposed would stifle the Internet and push a lot of firms out of business. The example they use is that the law would allow a copyright holder, for instance, to take down a cover version of a song on YouTube. And not just take down the one song, but take down YouTube.

Intellectual property holders argue that they need some protections because piracy is costing them billions of dollars. The challenge is how do you keep an open Internet if the government is regulating where consumers can surf, and how do regulate sites that promote piracy but aren?t in your country.

The battle has been escalating, with Wednesday?s planned blackout the latest salvo. Even tech companies are not immune to finding themselves on one side or the other. Go Daddy, the domain registrar based in Scottsdale, originally supported SOPA, but was hit with a boycott that had tech companies threatening to find different Web hosts. GoDaddy has since backed off.

Patrick O'Grady reports on technology, solar energy, utilities, manufacturing, aerospace, defense, sustainability, telecommunications, the Arizona Corporation Commission and other related topics.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_44/~3/xI-96Jqixoo/wikipedia-goes-dark-google-joins.html

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