Wed, May 16, 2012, 20:32 BST - UK Markets closed

Discover Yahoo! With Your Friends

Explore news, videos, and much more based on what your friends are reading and watching. Publish your own activity and retain full control.

To get started, first

YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    Wikipedia Blackout In Anti-Piracy Law Protest

    By (c) Sky News 2012 | Sky News – Tue, Jan 17, 2012 11:11 GMT

    Companies:

    RELATED QUOTES

    SymbolPriceChange
    YHOO15.35-0.05
    GOOG628.121417.01

    Wikipedia will black out its English-language site for 24 hours in protest at proposed US anti-piracy legislation.

    If passed, the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) would give content owners and the US government the power to request court orders to shut down websites associated with piracy.

    Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said the act threatens the future of the internet and has said the online encyclopedia site will be shut down from 5am GMT on Wednesday.

    Visitors to the site will only be able to see information about Sopa and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

    The information will urge Wikipedia readers to contact their local congressman to vote against the bills.

    Other sites leading the campaign include Reddit.com and Cheezburger.

    "This is a quite clumsily drafted legislation which is dangerous for an open Internet," Wales said in an interview.

    The move to black out the site was decided by voting within the Wikipedia community of writers and editors who manage the free service, Wales said.

    The English language Wikipedia receives more than 25 million average daily visitors from around the world.

    The Sopa legislation, under consideration in the House of Representatives, aims to crack down on online sales of pirated American movies, music or other goods by forcing internet companies to block access to foreign sites offering material that violates US copyright laws.

    Supporters argue the bill is unlikely to have an impact on US-based websites.

    US advertising networks could also be required to stop online ads, and search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites found to be distributing pirated goods.

    Google (NasdaqGS: GOOG - news) has repeatedly said the bill goes too far and could hurt investment.

    Along with other Internet companies such as Yahoo (NasdaqGS: YHOO - news) , Facebook, Twitter and eBay, it has run advertisements in major newspapers urging Washington lawmakers to rethink their approach.

    White House officials raised concerns on Saturday about Sopa saying they believe it could make businesses on the internet vulnerable to litigation and harm legal activity and free speech.

    In response, Sopa supporter News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch said on Twitter: "So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery."

     
    • Donald
      Donald  •  Oslo, Norway  •  4 months ago
      Well yay for the land of the free. Perhaps they should re-name it the land of the fee . . . And theyll probably manage to convince a majority of Americans that its for counter terrorism or something. American politics and lobbyists are a total disgrace to humanity.
      • Dreamer
        Dreamer 4 months ago
        America - the Land of the Free? They are so controlled, taxed, regulated, policed and overlegislated that they are not free at all. Most of them just don't realise it.
      • Ellesar
        Ellesar 4 months ago
        Yes, I've always found the 'Land of the Free' line very ironic coming from a country that was built on mass slavery.
      • Icarus
        Icarus 4 months ago
        You forget America was built by British immigrants...
        The slave traders were, in order of scale: the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, and Americans. (Klein, Herbert S. and Jacob Klein. The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge University Press, 1999. pp. 103–139.)
    • dean
      dean  •  Birkenhead, England  •  4 months ago
      This act is a stepping stone for internet censorship! .... Democracy my #$%$
      • uhoh
        uhoh 3 months ago
        Democracy; The bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people
        ~Oscar Wilde
      • David
        David 3 months ago
        Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch - Benjamin Franklin
    • Brigson
      Brigson  •  Manchester, England  •  4 months ago
      What is really at stake here is who owns the Internet? This is big business trying to seize effective control of something that belongs to us all.
      • dean
        dean 4 months ago
        Well said!
      • Matt Slater
        Matt Slater 4 months ago
        But big business already owns the internet!!
      • Radge2def
        Radge2def 4 months ago
        but Governments shouldnt police it. The internet is for all, and i have no problem with the police being granted powers to shut down specific websites due to their illegal activity, but i do have a problem when laws come into to play to anticipate possilble, what if scenarios. the beginning of the thought police idea.
    • anon
      anon  •  London, England  •  4 months ago
      At the end of the day it's all about control. They don't care about the people they want to control us like mice and that's not just the US government - it's worldwide!
      • sparky
        sparky 4 months ago
        correction - its the USA government trying to control everything worldwide. other countrys but not all are tempted and testing the water but america think they can do as they like world wide.
      • Bobmattfran
        Bobmattfran 3 months ago
        Sparky Absolutely spot on. The quality of life in the world for the majority of people would improve overnight if the US stopped interfering in other countries, and the UK for that matter.
    • Dreamer
      Dreamer  •  4 months ago
      Yet another case of the Americans trying to impose their laws on the rest of the world via the back door.
      Stay at home and sort out your own country and it's many problems before trying to "sort out" (mess up) everyone else.
    • S
      S  •  Dublin, Ireland  •  4 months ago
      SOPA - like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It will depend on how far the US authorities will over-interpret the rules. Good luck to Wikipedia.
      • sparky
        sparky 4 months ago
        you can guarantee they will over interprate to the full extent they can and then try further.
    • Howard W
      Howard W  •  Preston, England  •  4 months ago
      Nice to see Turdoch talking bollocks again . As for paymasters he'd know all about that
    • maz
      maz  •  4 months ago
      How about using all this effort and money to stop predators on the net and get rid of child porn? Oh no lets go after those evil pirates who steal change from billionaires! What a load of utter sh%*! There are worse atrocities out there that need immediate attention and internet piracy is not one of them.
    • SIMON
      SIMON  •  Brighton, England  •  4 months ago
      Rupert Murdoch - the `man` who allowed teenage girls mobile phones to be hacked.... and he goes on about theivery
    • Raiden
      Raiden  •  Nottingham, England  •  4 months ago
      Rupock Murdock is not just a crook, but a greedy crook, who violates other people's privacy yet speaks about anti piracy legislation.
    • MICHAEL
      MICHAEL  •  4 months ago
      Leave the internet alone. It belongs to everyone. There is enough politics in the world as it is.
    • Brigson
      Brigson  •  Manchester, England  •  4 months ago
      Good for Wiki. Stopping piracy is just the excuse for passing a law that will allow big powerful corporations to have any site shut down on the pretence of protecting copyright and trademarks. Those politicians supporting SOPA are either corrupt, incompetent or have totalitarian tendencies.
    • Murcielago
      Murcielago  •  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia  •  4 months ago
      sopa is going to ruin everything...
    • Sparrow
      Sparrow  •  London, England  •  4 months ago
      Way to stop SOPA.
      Step One: Post links to "pirate" websites onto the websites of politicians supportive of SOPA.
      Step Two: Demand that their websites be taken down according to the rules of SOPA.
    • Buck
      Buck  •  4 months ago
      typical yanks thinking they can rule everything. Hope this sopa thing fails....
    • Glad & Brian
      Glad & Brian  •  Bromley, England  •  4 months ago
      If Murdoch is against it it must be good for the rest of us.
    • david
      david  •  Ashton-under-Lyne, England  •  4 months ago
      The only rights you have are the ones you are prepared to fight for...but don't complain to the American president or you will arrested by FBI in the UK because our government has sold us down the river....again
    • Nick
      Nick  •  4 months ago
      And I almost believed the USA stood for Democracy even taking it abroad or was it Democracy for oil.
    • Shuffle
      Shuffle  •  4 months ago
      Maybe they will finaly shut down Facebook and people can start living in the real world again.
    • Dave
      Dave  •  Newcastle Upon Tyne, England  •  4 months ago
      Never before have people been able to make so much money in a short space of time and the money men are threatened. Not everyone who is rich is a bad person but there are clearly more things going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. Will we ever find out what is true and which are the conspiracy theories? No shock to see Murdoch's name there, he's surely a key player in the corruption of our society. How much money has he got, yet he still complains about piracy and thievery.
     Post a comment