So, the day of the big Internet Blackout is ended, but that is not the end of it. This threat to the Internet’s ability to function will not go away of it’s own accord, until the entities using the fear of some very real threats are educated or outed for the ignoramuses or scoundrels they are.

This site joined thousands of web sites the world over, in going dark for 24 hours though it was approximately 33 hours here, iirc.

The reason for this is simple.  There are two bills in the United States Congress which are being talked about as if they can help to subvert Piracy of Intellectual Property in the world.  They cannot.  They will instead make the internet unstable, and actually work against the stated goals.  Explaining how and why is beyond the scope of this article, but I can point you to some good sources of information. My friend Maria from my days at ICANN wrote this piece at Crooked Timber which gives a bit more of the info on this. It is a good read, and brief enough. It is brilliant.

Another good source for info on this and related subjects is always the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  The EFF site is a bit information dense, but if you are a bit obsessive (I am a bit obsessive) it’s a good place to get lost reading about a host of subjects related to Freedom.

A more “User Friendly” or generally accessible site would be the Facebook take on this proposed legislation. Or, for a bit more pure info on the bills themselves, you may already realize the Wikipedia SOPA – Stop Online Piracy - and PIPA – Protect IP - pages are a good stop along the way to understanding why you really should get involved in this fight.

Which is of course the real reason for writing about this. This particular legislation may not ever get out of committee, but it may.  If it doesn’t, it may be replaced with something else equally horrendous, but not if you and your neighbors get involved.  Get informed and write or call your representatives. Tell them to fight Piracy and Protect IP, but not by putting power over the internet in the hands of anyone who may feel like messing with a legitimate content creator they don’t like, and not in a way that is going to destabilize the internet and stifle innovation.

Here are a few more sites to check out:

In the UK, there is the Open Rights Group

Also there is the European Digital Rights organization.

Finally, for a bit more about what happened yesterday, there is this great piece in the Cristian Science Monitor on how five web sites went about protesting this proposed destruction of the internet.

Many thanks to Maria for most of these links :p They are used here without permission, but in the spirit of the internet, and I think she’ll forgive me.