The most shocking news you might see here. Wikipedia is planning to Shut down its website to protest the New Anti-Piracy Law that is to be implemented in USA. The bill is SOPA or Stop Online Piracy Act which they are opposing. Here’s the reason why they are opposing the SOPA Act.
- Wikipedia arguably falls under the definition of an “Internet search engine,” and, for that reason, a federal prosecutor could obtain a court order mandating that the Wikimedia Foundation (That runs Wikipedia) remove links to specified “foreign infringing sites” or face at least contempt of court sanctions. The definition of “foreign infringing sites” is broad and could well include legitimate sites that host mostly legal content, yet have other purported infringing content on their sites. Again, many international sites may decide not to defend because of the heavy price tag, allowing an unchallenged block by the government.
- The result is that, under court order, Wikimedia would be tasked to review millions upon millions of sourced links, locate the links of the so-called “foreign infringing sites,” and block them from our articles or other projects. It costs donors’ money and staff resources to undertake such a tremendous task, and it must be repeated every time a prosecutor delivers a court order from any federal judge in the United States on any new “foreign infringing site.” Blocking links runs against our culture of open knowledge, especially when surgical solutions to fighting infringing material are available.
- Under the new bill, there is one significant improvement. The new version exempts U.S. based companies – including the Wikimedia Foundation – from being subject to a litigation regime in which rights owners could claim that our site was an “Internet site dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” Such a damnation against Wikimedia could have easily resulted in demands to cut off our fundraising payment processors. The new version now exempts U.S. sites like WikiPedia.org.
Due to above arguments, Wikipedia has Protested and threatened to Close down WIKIPEDIA Forever. The owner of the Wikipedia has started poll asking its readers to Support WikiMedia foundation. Please Support the Strike and save Wikipedia Closing! Just imagine World without Wikipedia!
You can read out the whole Message by Jimmy Wales and Support here.
So far, 87% of Wikipedians support an anti-SOPA blackout. Let’s see what is going to happen!
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