Hundreds, if not thousands of websites are expected to go dark or alter themselves Wednesday to protest proposed U.S. anti-piracy legislation that many believe goes too far fighting online copyright and trademark infringement. But what’s all the fuss about? Here’s …

A SOPA/PIPA Blackout Explainer

A message Tuesday on Wikipedia giving notice of its self-imposed censorship Wednesday

Hundreds, if not thousands, of websites are expected to go dark or alter themselves Wednesday to protest proposed U.S. anti-piracy legislation that many believe goes too far fighting online copyright and trademark infringement.

Josh Levy, campaign manager for Free Press, said in a Tuesday conference call supporting the protest that “This is the biggest revolt we’ve seen online” against U.S. legislation.

The websites are expected to participate in the protest against the Senate’s Protect IP Act and the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act. They include brand names like Wikipedia, Wired, BoingBoing and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to little-known sites likes political action committee DemocracyForAmerica.

But what’s all the fuss about? Here’s an explainer of the basics of the bills, the protests and how you make your voice heard.

What prompted the protest?

*The expected protest comes despite the White House announcing Saturday it would not support the bills if they mandate changes to internet infrastructure, which was the most egregious provision in the measures that prompted the protests.

Leaders in the House and Senate also buckled to widespread pressure and announced they would at least temporarily remove those DNS-redirecting requirements. That provision would have required ISPs to prevent Americans from visiting blacklisted sites by altering the system known as DNS that turns site names like into IP addresses such as Instead, for the blacklisted sites, ISPs would have to lie to their customers and tell their browsers that the site doesn’t exist.

Unfortunately, that has serious security implications and undermines government-led efforts to prevent hackers from hijacking the net’s naming system in order to scam users. Those sites would disappear in a process that security experts said would damage internet security.

The SOPA and PIPA measures are now being reworked behind closed doors and are expected to exclude the DNS language.

If DNS blacklisting is off the table, why the protest?

While DNS blacklisting was the most egregious portion of the bill and a clear indicator that Congress didn’t know what it was doing, what’s left in the bills continue to have serious implications on the First Amendment and online freedom.


The bills also allow the Justice Department to order internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T to block their users from visiting blacklisted sites. That would be unprecedented in the United States, though it’s a common tactic used in countries like Syria, Iran and China to clamp down on political dissent and adult content.





Why are these bills on the table?



Does the government or Big Content have a history of abusing the takedown process?

Unfortunately, copyright holders don’t always play fair. Universal Music already believes it does not have to consider fair use when sending YouTube a takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The U.S. government has seized  and shut down a website for a year before giving it back to a New York music blogger falsely accused of facilitating copyright infringement.

What sites are targeted?
The legislation for the most part is directed at foreign websites dedicated to infringing activities. Think the Pirate Bay, for one, which supports itself with advertising. Sites ending in .com, .org or .net generally are not targeted, but the government says it already has the power to seize and shut down sites on those top-level domains in a program known as “Operation in Our Sites.”

However, the orders to block infringing sites will go to U.S.-based search engines, ad networks, payment processors and ISPs.

What’s the status of the bills?

The House bill is expected to return next month to the Judiciary Committee for a vote or possibly more testimony. The Senate bill could either go back to committee or it could just be replaced and voted on by the full Senate. No announcement has been made.

Who has sponsored these measures and who is against them?

These measures are not a partisan issue. SOPA’s chief sponsor is Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the House Judiciary Committee chairman and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The measure’s biggest critics include Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Reps. Darrell Issa (R-California) and Zoe Lofgren (D-California).

David Kravets


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