not about love….

Nope, this post is not about love.  Nor is it about music…. directly. But your ability to access the music you want could be impeded if SOPA/PIPA are passed in the United States.

Tomorrow, many websites will be going dark in protest of  SOPA ( Stop Online Piracy Act)  which, from my understanding, would basically make 50% of the internet illegal.

Since I am no good at explaining politics, let alone the complexities of bills like these I’ll defer to the BBC on this one. Here’s a link to an article that will help explain what SOPA is, and who supports it.

The bottom line about it is that if you are a site that hosts illegal downloading, you’re in trouble. If you are a site that LINKS so a site that hosts illegal downloading, you’re also in trouble.  This trouble could mean a fine or jail time, and almost certainly means blacklisting from the internet.

All of this boils down to a mass internet protest happening TOMORROW Wed. Jan 18th 2012.  Many websites including Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing, even WordPress will be going dark .  WordPress also has a great post about this issue, what it is,  and how it’s taking action. Click here to read it. 

This link provides a fairly thorough list of  websites taking part in the protest tomrrow.

A bill like this, if passed, would have far reaching consequences that will affect how we all use the world wide web whether we are in the US or not.   Get informed and, if you like,  get involved!

but most importantly….. Get all your homework done early, cuz the internet is going to be of little help tomorrow.