Write to Your Congress Representative about SOPA
In an effort to create awareness of the repercussions that SOPA would bring to the innovation of online exchange, Wikipedia has blocked its service for 24 hours. In turn, they have provided a very useful tool to find out who is one’s representative if residing in the United States. Wikipedia is doing this along with WordPress, Reddit, and Mozilla. Log on to Wikipedia and you will be taken directly to the proper page for further action. Their views on SOPA are reposted below:
Tell them you are their constituent, and you oppose SOPA and PIPA.
SOPA and PIPA would put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA would build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.
In a world in which politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money, Wikipedia — and sites like it — cannot survive.
Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they would fatally damage the free and open Internet.
