I’m unable to black out this site, but in following with a number of other websites around the web today, please considering contacting your Representatives and Senators in Congress about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its counterpart, PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act)
Here’s the text for SOPA.
Here’s the text for PIPA.
The main arguments behind the two bills are that they are overly broad, written without the proper knowledge and input from technical experts, and that as a result, they would hamper much of the innovation from the web.
I make my living with the internet: in my day job with an online graduate school, and in my off hours, with sites such as io9, Tor.com, Blastr, Lightspeed Magazine and others. My job exists because of innovation with the internet, and I rather like it.
I take no issue with the idea that copyright holders have a stake in this fight: their property should be protected. However, burning the forest down to stop someone lighting matches doesn’t make the holders winners: it makes everybody lose out.
