Where’s Wikipedia?

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/sopablackout.jpg” caption=”Wikipedia, one of the most popular websites on the Internet, blacked-out its English content Wednesday to protest proposed legislation in the U.S. aimed at curbing copyright infringement. Image via en.wikipedia.org.”]Some of the world's most popular websites are shuttered today in protest of proposed
U.S. legislation targeting online copyright infringement.

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia and social news sites Reddit and Boing Boing, among
others, are blacked-out today to raise awareness about the Stop Online Piracy Act and
the Protect IP Act.

The bills are meant to curb copyright infringement on the part of foreign websites and
would give greater powers to the U.S. government in dealing with offenders.

Under the laws, the burden would be on websites to police user-contributed content.
Any links to infringing content could force the linking site offline.

Critics maintain the proposed legislation is excessive and could damage the free and
open Internet – and not just south of the border.

“Wikipedians 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,” writes Wikipedia in a message posted to
its site today.

The legislation's supporters – movie studios, television networks, book publishers and
some internet service providers – contend that more than two million jobs could be at
stake if the bills are not passed.

Sara Bannerman, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies
and Multimedia who studies copyright, says the proposed legislation is seen by many as
being unnecessarily heavy-handed.

“It's seen as being an overreach, in terms of blocking so much more content than it
would seem necessary to block,” says Bannerman. “The bill proposes blocking whole
websites rather than taking a much more surgical approach to blocking infringing
content.

“It would give the department of justice a great deal of power to police the Internet,
rather than use the existing content take-down provisions. It's a real bludgeon
approach.”

Bannerman says Canada's approach to handling online copyright infringement is much
more nuanced.

“Rather than interfering with the Internet and its very backbone, Canada's proposed
copyright legislation recommends notifying offenders about infringing content. It
doesn't propose to take down the whole website.”

She adds, however, that what goes on in the U.S. can have ramifications across the
globe.

“The U.S. sets the trend in terms of what legislation is going to look like around the
world,” she says. “It sets a huge precedent that other countries tend to follow. It could
have huge influence all around the world.

“If we shut down websites based on intellectual property infringement, what's next?”

The proposed legislation has been temporarily shelved but debate in the House of
Representatives should resume in February.