Why Canadians should care about SOPA and PIPA

Ladies and Gentlenerds,

Tomorrow, our beloved World Wide Web will be running at half mast.

Reddit will be shuttered, Boing Boing will be black, Wikipedia, WordPress, The Cheezburger network, Mozilla and thousands of other websites are following suit.

Basically, If the Internet were New York City, Central Park, the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty, all major libraries and your best friend’s basement would be closed tomorrow — but only to make a very important point.

“The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy,” writes Reddit’s admins. “Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to Reddit and many other sites you use everyday”

Essentially, a very dangerous piece of proposed legislation is working its way through congress right now and the Internet is banding together in protest.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act could allow website addresses to be blocked when complaints are filed about copyright infringement.

Mashups? Done. Supercuts? Bye. Parodies, remakes, memes upon memes upon memes… all potentially axed by the strong mouse of the law.

“We believe in a free and open internet where information can be shared 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,” reads a message signed by Sue Gardner of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Hollah, girlfriend. High fives to that.

Wikipedia will be shutting down for 24 hours starting tomorrow morning at 05:00 UTC, while Reddit will be out between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Procrastinator’s Paradise / the “front page of the Internet” will be replaced by a message explaining how SOPA would shut down sites like Reddit, complete with links that Redditors can use to take action against the legislation themselves.

They’ll also be running a live stream of the House hearing on SOPA, where Reddit founder kn0thing will be testifying against the act.

This proposed anti-piracy legislation would take effect only in the United States, but if passed it could – nay, it WILL – impact Internet users and companies around the world.

Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law Michael Geist explains why Canadians should be paying close attention to the anti SOPA/PIPA movement here.

My main take away? “SOPA treats all dot-com, dot-net, and dot-org domains” as American, legally. So… all of the good websites, pretty much. #*&!(*#!!!

A free and open web is the backbone of creativity in the digital age. Without it, we cannot innovate. We will lose so much more than what a privileged few will gain.

Please, do what you can to protest SOPA and PIPA. Learn more about the issues and spread the word. This is important. Way more important than you may even realize until it’s too late.