Pages

Total Pageviews

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Wikipedia(English-language) goes off-line for 24 hours - Jan 18,2012


Wikipedia has taken its English-language content offline as part of a "day of darkness" in protest at US anti-piracy laws that it says could "fatally damage the free and open internet''  and "severely limit people's access to online information".

Sopa and Pipa propose that anyone found guilty of streaming copyrighted content without permission 10 or more times within six months should go to jail.
Any site accused of "enabling or facilitating piracy" could be shut down.


The bills, the ''Stop Online Piracy Act'' in the House

and the ''Protect IP Act''  in the Senate, are backed by major media companies and are mostly intended to curtail the illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online.

US Congress Puts Off Piracy Bill

 

US Senate majority leader Harry Reid said today that he was delaying next week's scheduled vote on a controversial bill aimed at cracking down on online piracy.

"In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's Jan 24,2012 vote on the Protect IP Act," Reid said in a statement two days after Wikipedia and Google led a wave of online protest against the legislation.

"There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved," Reid said

US congressional support for the legislation, the Protect IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House of Representatives, has been eroding in the face of the online protests which branded the bills a danger to Internet freedom.

 

 

 

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)