wikipedia

WIKIPEDIA IN 24-HOUR BLACKOUT PROTEST

From Wikipedia

“For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.”

What exactly is Wikipedia doing?

Wikipedia is protesting against SOPA and PIPA by blacking out the English Wikipedia for 24 hours, beginning at midnight January 18, Eastern Time. Readers who come to English Wikipedia during the blackout will not be able to read the encyclopedia: instead, they will see messages intended to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA, and encouraging them to share their views with their elected representatives, and via social media.

What are SOPA and PIPA?

SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively. SOPA is short for the "Stop Online Piracy Act," and PIPA is an acronym for the "Protect IP Act." ("IP" stands for "intellectual property.") In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet. Detailed information about these bills can be found here and here. You can also follow them through the legislative process here and here. The EFF has summarized why these bills are simply unacceptable in a world that values an open, secure, and free Internet.

Why is this happening?

Nothing like this has ever happened before on the English Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s have chosen to black out the English Wikipedia for the first time ever, because we are concerned that SOPA and PIPA will severely inhibit people's access to online information. This is not a problem that will solely affect people in the United States: it will affect everyone around the world.

Why? SOPA and PIPA are badly drafted legislation that won't be effective in their main goal (to stop copyright infringement), and will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet. They put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. And, SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

Do you care about infringement?

Yes. Wikipedia’s spend thousands of hours every week working tirelessly in reviewing and removing infringing content. Wikipedia talk pages show tremendous care about protecting copyright and sophisticated study on the many nuances of what constitutes infringement as opposed to legitimate speech. Wikipedia is based on a model of free licenses. Every Wikipedia is a rights owner, licensing their work under free licenses. Infringement harms our mission; free licenses do not work with infringement. Wikipedia has a mission of sharing knowledge around the world, and that is not possible when the knowledge is tainted with infringement. So, yes, Wikipedia’s care deeply about protecting the rights of others and ensuring against infringement.

But this does not mean Wikipedia’s are willing to trample on free expression like SOPA and PIPA. The proposed legislation seeks to take down sites entirely, because courts and others simply don't have time to worry about the nuances of copyright law and free expression. That is what is troubling. When the remedies are bludgeons, when entire sites are taken down, when everyone assumes that all content is infringing because some is, we lose something important. We lose the nuances of copyright about which our community cares, we lose our values based on protecting free speech, and we lose what we represent. The Internet cannot turn into a world where free expression is ignored to accommodate overly simple solutions that gratify powerful right owners who spend lots of money to promote the regulation of expression. There are better ways, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to find the right approach to legitimate copyright enforcement without trampling on free expression. SOPA and PIPA don't represent these values, and for that reason we ask you to oppose these bills.

AREN’T SOPA dead? Wasn't the bill shelved, and didn't the White House declare that it wouldn’t sign anything that resembles the current bill?

No, neither SOPA nor PIPA are dead. On January 17th, SOPA's sponsor said the bill would be discussed in early February. There are signs PIPA may be debated on the Senate floor next week. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. We are already seeing big media calling us names. In many jurisdictions around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation that prioritizes overly-broad copyright enforcement laws, laws promoted by power players, over the preservation of individual civil liberties. We want the Internet to be free and open, everywhere, for everyone.

Aren’t SOPA/PIPA as they stand not even really a threat to Wikipedia? Won't the DNS provisions be removed?

SOPA and PIPA are still alive, and they’re still a threat to the free and open web, which means they are a threat to Wikipedia. For example, in its current form, SOPA would require U.S. sites to take on the heavy burden of actively policing third-party links for infringing content. And even with the DNS provisions removed, the bill would give the U.S. government extraordinary, ambiguous, and loosely-defined powers to take control over content and information on the free web. Taking one bad provision out doesn't make the bills okay, and regardless, Internet experts agree they won't even be effective in their main goal: halting copyright infringement. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a really great post about some of the more dangerous SOPA and PIPA provisions.

What can users outside of the U.S. do to support this effort?

Readers who don't live in the United States can contact their local State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or similar branch of government. Tell them that you oppose the draft U.S. SOPA and PIPA legislation, and all similar legislation. SOPA and PIPA will have a global effect - websites outside of the U.S. would be impacted by legislation that hurts the free and open web. And, other jurisdictions are grappling with similar issues, and may choose paths similar to SOPA and PIPA.

Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?

The Wikipedia community, as part of their request to the Wikimedia Foundation to carry out this protest, asked us to ensure that we make English Wikipedia accessible in some way during an emergency. The English Wikipedia will be accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by completely disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page.

I keep hearing that this is a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Is that true?

No. Some people are characterizing it that way, probably in an effort to imply all the participants are motivated by commercial self-interest. But you can know it's not that simple, because Wikipedia has no financial self-interest here: we are not trying to monetize your eyeballs or sell you products. We are protesting to raise awareness about SOPA and PIPA solely because we think they will hurt the Internet, and your ability to access information. We are doing this for you.

In carrying out this protest, is Wikipedia abandoning neutrality?

We hope you continue to trust Wikipedia to be a neutral informational resource. We are staging this blackout because, although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence actually is not. For over a decade, Wikipedia’s have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Wikipedia's existence depends on a free, open and uncensored Internet. We are shutting Wikipedia down for you, our readers. We support your right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe people should be able to share information without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA (and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States) don’t advance the interests of the general public. That's why we're doing this.

THE TELEGRAPH:

A major target of the protest, SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act), has already been effectively halted by opposition from the White House, but Jimmy Wales, the cofounder of Wikipedia, said the blackout would go ahead anyway.

The English version of the website became inaccessible at 5am GMT on Wednesday morning. Instead of a database of more than 3.8 million articles, visitors are greeted with an open letter encouraging them to contact Congress in protest.

“My goal is to melt switchboards,” Mr. Wales told his 46,000 followers.

“We have no indication that SOPA is fully off the table. We need to send Washington a BIG message.”

He argued that companion legislation, PIPA (the Protect Intellectual Property Act), under consideration by the Senate, also posed a threat to websites.

“PIPA is still extremely dangerous,” Mr. Wales wrote.

He estimated that 100 million English-speaking Wikipedia users will be affected by the blackout and warned students to “do your homework early”.

Wikipedia is the sixth-most visited website in the world, according to Alexa. The protest will be matched on other major websites such as Reddit, a popular link-sharing service, and is unprecedented for the English version of Wikipedia, although the Italian version mounted a blackout protest in October against new libel laws.

Opponents of SOPA and PIPA argue they impose unfair responsibilities on websites such as Wikipedia to check that no material they host infringes copyright. Under current laws if websites remove pirated content when they are notified by the copyright holder they are not liable for damages.

The proposed laws also make it easier for American copyright holders to cut off access to foreign websites hosting unlicensed copies of films, music and television programs.

The legislation has been backed by an intensive lobbying campaign by major media owners, including Rupert Murdoch, and opposed by the giants of Silicon Valley, including Google and Facebook.

On Friday the White House said it would not approve key parts of the bills, however, effectively sending them back to the drawing board. A statement from President Obama’s Internet advisors said the provisions for blocking foreign websites “pose a real risk to cyber security”.

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small," a White House spokesman said.

Mr. Murdoch complained on Twitter that President Obama “has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters”.

SOPA was proposed by Texas congressman Lamar Smith in October with the support of a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans but was immediately set upon by opponents who claimed it violated America's First Amendment, which guarantees the right of free speech.

Legislators in both parties attacked the bill and over the weekend Darrell Issa, a Republican from California who has fought the proposals, said he had secured a promise from House Speaker John Boehner that the legislation would not go before a vote until there was "consensus".

MURDOCH ATTACKS GOOGLE

The world's biggest media baron and founder of News Corporation has waded into the controversial debate over internet piracy that has pitted the likes of Google against traditional Hollywood studios.

Last night Mr. Murdoch tweeted: "So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery."

He added: "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells adverts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying."

The tweets followed an earlier statement from the Obama administration saying that it supported new laws to tackle piracy problems, but that it would not back legislation that reduced freedom of expression, increased cyber security risk or undermined "the dynamic innovative global Internet".

Although the Obama statement did not mention the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) by name, it was read as a clear response to the furious debate around it. The move suggests the White House is trying to forge a precarious balance between large media interests – such as movie studios and companies that aggregate information, such as Google and its peers in Silicon Valley. In his tweets Mr. Murdoch adds that "film making [is] risky as hell" and that "this has to lead to less hurting writers, actors, all concerned".

Obama's message urged lawmakers to approve measures this year that balanced the need to fight piracy and counterfeiting against an open Internet.

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small," the White House said.

The administration was responding to measures that would allow the Justice Department to target offshore websites – through internet service providers – that offer illegal copies of music, movies and television shows online. The Senate is expected to consider similar legislation later this month.

Tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo questioned the proposed legislation, warning in November that it would force new liabilities and mandates on law-abiding technology companies and require them to monitor websites. "We are concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our nation's cyber security," the letter stated.

The three main industry supporters behind SOPA responded to the White House, saying it was "time to stop the obstruction and move forward on legislation."

Anti-internet piracy law adopted by Spanish government

An IDC report suggested that 97.8% of music consumption in Spain was illegal

The Spanish government has approved tough new legislation which could see websites deemed to be trading in pirated material blocked within ten days.

The legislation creates a government body with powers to force Internet service providers to block sites.

It comes as the US plans to adopt similar tough new rules.

The crackdown on piracy has been welcomed by the creative industries but criticised by net activists.

Hacktivists

Under the Sinde Law, named after the former Spanish Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, rights holders can report websites hosting infringing content to a newly created government commission.

The intellectual property commission will decide whether it wants to take action against an infringing site or the ISPs providing infrastructure to it, and the case will then be passed to a judge to rule on whether the site should be shut down.

The aim is to complete the process within 10 days.

The Spanish government said that the legislation was necessary to bring it in line with international crackdowns on piracy.

It had been put on hold by the previous government but the ruling party, Partido Popular, decided to move ahead and implement it at one of its first meetings since coming to power in November.

Deputy PM Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said that the aim of the law was "to safeguard intellectual property, boost our culture industries and protect the rights of owners, creators and others in the face of the lucrative plundering of illegal downloading sites."

Campaigners said that it set a dangerous precedent.

"This is another example of bad copyright law eating away at the safeguards around freedom of expression," said Peter Bradwell from the UK's Open Rights Group.

"The same overblown demands to pare down proper legal processes are being made to the government here in the UK. Our policy makers must not throw away the keys to the internet simply because copyright lobbyists are quite good at complaining."

Opposition has been strong in Spain, with bloggers, journalists and tech professionals staging a series of protests, including writing an anti-Sinde manifesto.

Last year hacktivist group Anonymous organised a protest at the Goya Awards - Spain's equivalent of the Oscars - which saw several hundred people in Guy Fawkes masks booing the minister of culture while applauding Alex de la Iglesia, then president of the Spanish Film Academy.

The movie director had previously voiced opposition to the Sinde law on Twitter and later resigned over the issue.

Old laws

The creative industries around the world have been frustrated with delays in implementing laws designed to crack down on piracy such as the UK's Digital Economy Act.

Instead many are finding new ways to use existing laws to crack down on piracy. In the UK, the movie industry body MPA (Motion Picture Association) used copyright law to force BT to block access to Newzbin, a members-only site which links to pirated material.

Following the success of the case, Sky has also agreed to block access.

In France, the government is pursuing a three strikes policy for persistent pirates. Hadopi, the body set up to administer the policy, said in mid-2011 that over the previous nine months it had been tracking 18 million French IP addresses.

It sent a total of 470,000 first warnings by email, with 20,000 users receiving a second warning through the mail.

About 10 people who appeared to ignore the two warnings were asked to come and explain their actions to the agency.

Big problem

Across the Atlantic, the US law Sopa (Stop Online Piracy Act) is proving equally controversial. A series of tech firms have removed their names for a list of supporters following widespread opposition from high profile tech leaders such as Eric Schmidt.

Sopa aims to stop online ad networks and payment processors from doing business with foreign websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.

It could stop search engines from linking to the allegedly infringing sites. Domain name registrars could be forced to take down the websites, and internet service providers could be forced to block access to the sites accused of infringing.

The founders of Google, Twitter and eBay were among a large group of signatories to a strongly worded letter to Congress criticising the legislation as censorship.

US pressure was in part responsible for Spain's current tough anti-piracy stance, following a 2008 report that found it to be one of the worst countries in Europe for piracy.

A later IDC report - The Observation of Piracy and Consumption of Digital Content Habits - commissioned by a coalition of Spain's rights-holders suggested that piracy in Spain cost legal content rights owners 5.2bn euros ($6.8bn, £4.3bn) in the first half of 2010.

It claimed that 97.8% of all music consumption in Spain was driven by illegal downloads, with 77% of movie downloads and 60.7% of game downloads taking place illegally in the first six months of 2010, according to a study conducted by IDC Research for the Madrid-based Coalition of Content Creators and Industries.