On Wednesday, several high-traffic websites went ‘dark’ in reaction to proposed legislation in the US that could, according to critics, seriously infringe freedom on the internet. Twitter protested by creating a host of random (and unverifiable) facts, whilst Google had its logo blocked out.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is the bill being considered by the House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) is the parallel bill being considered by the Senate. The proposed legislation is intended to reduce online piracy, with a particular focus on illegal copies of media hosted on foreign servers. The bills suggest that anyone found guilty of streaming copyrighted content without permission ten or more times within a six month period should receive a custodial sentence of five years.

What are the bills proposing?

Under the original wording of the bill, the Attorney General would have the power to:

• Order internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to foreign-based sites suspected of trafficking in pirated and counterfeit goods;
• Order search engines to delist the sites from their indexes;
• Ban advertising on suspected sites;
• Block payment services from processing transactions for accused sites.

If the same standards were applied to US-based sites, Wikipedia, Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, Google and Wired could all find themselves blocked.

The bills would also ban sites from containing information about how to access blocked sites. The bills originally demanded that ISPs block users from being able to access suspected sites using a technique called Domain Name System (DNS) blocking. This process, which is already in use in Iran and China, would effectively make sites ‘disappear’ from the internet. However, after opponents claimed this could disrupt the internet’s underlying architecture, the chief sponsor of each bill agreed to remove the measure.

Who’s involved?

Not surpisingly, supporters of the bills include television networks, film industry bodies, music publishers, book publishers and manufacturers. On the other side of the debate, you’ll see some of the most successful companies in recent history. Wikipedia, Google, Twitter and Zynga to name a few. What these organisations have in common is that they have upended entire industries (or are in the process of doing so). Each of these firms has roots in embracing new technologies and building models to deliver value to customers at the lowest cost.However, ‘content’ vs ‘technology’ doesn’t really do justice to describing the two sides. Tim O’Reilly, the CEO of O’Reilly Media (a very well-known publishing and media company that derives a large portion of its revenue from the sale of books) has been one of the most ardent critics of SOPA and PIPA. On the other hand, GoDaddy.com, the largest of the web’s domain name registrars, was very much in favour of SOPA (at least until a boycott caused them to back down). Similarly, there are plenty of other technology firms that have supported SOPA.

How effective were the protests?

Google Inc. is reported to have collected more than 7 million signatures for its online petition to Congress. The Wikimedia Foundation (the umbrella organization that includes Wikipedia) announced that more than 8 million US visitors looked up their Congressional representatives through its site. The group estimated that 162 million people visited the blackout landing page, which asked users to imagine “a world without knowledge.” The Fight for the Future nonprofit organisation, which was behind the overall Web movement, reported Wednesday that it had logged 300,000 e-mails to members of Congress and counting.