Major Websites 'Blackout' In Protest of SOPA and PIPA

Many popular websites, including Wikipedia and Craigslist, are "blacking out" Wednesday to protest the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate's PROTECT IP (intellectual property) Act (PIPA).  Patch, AOL and The Huffington Post will not be participating in the protests, however, they are opposed.

"As written, we cannot support the bills,” said AOL's senior vice president of Public Policy, Tekedra N. Mawakana.  “We believe an open Internet is critical for innovation, job creation, and the sustained growth of Internet businesses.  We are in the process of working directly with lawmakers to improve the bills."

The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act of 2011 would give law enforcement and the United States Attorney General’s office some additional tools to combat the illegal online sale of counterfeit or copyright infringing goods.  

Some of the powers given would be the power to serve issued court orders on search engines, payment processors, advertising networks, and Internet service providers.  It would also allow lawsuits against site operators, but would not allow law enforcement to block access to a site.  This bill would also require plaintiffs to sue the owner or registrant of a domain name before bringing suit against a site itself.

Locally, the bill is supported by U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), one of the bill’s 40 co-sponsors.  Menendez attempted to reassure citizens who were worried by the bill with a post on twitter yesterday.

"#NJ: I hear your concerns re: #PIPA loud & clear & share in these concerns," wrote Menendez.  "I'm working to ensure critical changes are made to the bill. I’m fully committed to ensuring that any bill that passes the Senate will maintain freedom of the internet & protect intellectual property."

U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has not taken a formal opinion on the bill, but took to twitter today to express concerns with it.

“The original version of #PIPA raises serious concerns & substantial changes must be made to preserve a free & open Internet,” Lautenberg wrote in a tweet.

On Wednesday, the homepage of the English version of Wikipedia remained the usual page, but searching for something brings you to a black page prompting you to enter your zip code and ultimately leading you to your representatives contact info.

In an , Wikipedia General Counsel Brad Patrick said that the site fears litigation that can be brought as a result of this bill.  If passed, the site can be sued for “intellectual property” reasons and will also turn them into a “police” for what can’t be posted.

“The major issue is the ambiguity in the bill,” said Patrick.  “It is not clear what will or will not be the immediate effect, however, based on the MPAA track record of resorting to litigation and aggressively using take down notices, it can be expected such a pattern will reproduce itself.  The bigger issues are what some have called the “existential threat” to the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects – can Wikipedia remain if the spigot of liability is turned on?  What will be necessary to combat it?  Certainly in the long term, capricious enforcement of some provisions by the government is inevitable.”

Google has taken another approach to the protest, by blacking out "Google" on the site, and asking visitors to "Tell Congress, please don't censor the web!"  Its search engine is still functionable on Wednesday.

Rep. William Pascrell Jr. (D-8^th) said in a statement posted on his Facebook account today that he opposed SOPA.

“There’s no question that online piracy is a serious problem, and we must fix our current laws to better protect the rights of intellectual property holders,” Pascrell wrote.  But I believe that, in its current form, SOPA is not the answer.  The bill has many problems including the potential to harm free speech on the Internet by censoring lawful websites, which will stifle innovation and growth in our technology sector.”

Pascrell, whose district encompasses the city of Newark, Bloomfield, Belleville, Cedar Grove, Nutley, Glen Ridge, Verona and parts of South Orange, Livingston, Montclair and West Orange said he agrees with President Barack Obama that legislators must find a compromise to the issue and “write legislation that will address the problem of copyright infringement.”

He said his bottom line is “the Internet must remain free, open and uncensored.” 

Chris Nesi, Abby Albright and Michael Canning contributed to this report.