On Wednesday, Capitol Hill was jolted by perhaps the most extraordinary protest ever organized in the history of the United States of America.
It wasn’t a giant rally on the National Mall, or a march through the streets of D.C., or an occupation of the Capitol by upset citizens. Rather, it was an Internet strike – a coordinated virtual demonstration by thousands upon thousands of websites (including some well known sites like Google and Wikipedia) against a pair of dangerous bills that the Internet community believes would undermine and damage its integrity.
Instigated by Reddit, a social news site, Wednesday’s day of action brought together an unprecedented coalition of companies, organizations, and individuals, who partially or completely darkened their websites to raise awareness of — and mobilize opposition to — the two bills, known as the “Stop Online Piracy Act” and the “Protect IP Act”. Tens of thousands of sites were estimated to have participated, with their message reaching tens of millions of people worldwide.
Written by Hollywood’s lawyers, SOPA and PIPA, as they are known, are meant to make it easier for big media companies to take action against online copyright infringement, which they claim is eating into their profits. But major technology companies, civil liberties activists, bloggers, librarians, law professors, security experts, engineers, and entrepreneurs say that Hollywood’s legislation – which it drafted without any outside input – would imperil Internet freedom, stability, and security while doing little to stamp out infringement.
Strangely enough, this legislative battle does not correspond to party lines – or even ideological lines. In this fight, progressive, conservative and libertarian activists find themselves united against powerful trade groups like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and the few giant media conglomerates they represent: The Walt Disney Company, News Corporation, Comcast’s NBC Universal, Viacom, CBS, and Time Warner.
These conglomerates own the biggest Hollywood studios, record labels, and publishing houses in the world. They also control most of the traditional media in the United States.
For months, their lobbyists have been quietly working to line up support for SOPA (in the House) and PIPA (in the Senate). The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) boasted last summer that it had signed up more than a quarter of the U.S. Senate as cosponsors of PIPA. But on Wednesday, in response to the protest, many PIPA cosponsors began defecting – while previously undecided members of Congress from both houses and both parties announced their opposition, including half of Washington State’s congressional delegation.
Until the days leading up to Wednesday’s protest, opposition to SOPA and PIPA consisted of only a few courageous lawmakers, notably Ron Wyden, Jared Polis and Maria Cantwell (all progressive Democrats) along with Darrell Issa, Rand Paul, and Jerry Moran (all conservative Republicans). But now, thanks to the coordinated day of action, the list has gotten much longer. Opponents now outnumber proponents by a factor of almost two.
Lawmakers and their aides acknowledged that the joint progressive/conservative grassroots protest had overwhelmed Congress’ infrastructure. The Capitol switchboard staggered through the day under a massive volume of calls. The websites of several lawmakers buckled and stopped working as a result of heavy traffic. And activists reported that they were unable to leave messages for their representatives due to clogged voicemail boxes.
Many took to Twitter and Facebook to open up a dialogue with their representatives, and fittingly, dozens of lawmakers taking sides against SOPA and PIPA chose to announce their decisions there.
“I can say, with all honesty, that the feedback I received from Arkansans has been overwhelmingly in opposition to the Senate bill,” Republican Senator John Boozman wrote in a Facebook note. “That is why I am announcing today that I intend to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act [PIPA]. I will have my name removed as a co-sponsor of the bill and plan to vote against it if Majority Leader Reid brings it to the floor in its current form.”
The fight is not over. The MPAA, which hilariously denounced the global protest as both a “stunt” and “an abuse of power,” has vowed to continue pushing both SOPA and PIPA in Congress. But it will now have to contend with newly invigorated opposition, facilitated and powered by the open, free, and decentralized medium it wants so badly to censor and control.
To learn more about PIPA and SOPA and why the passage of either would threaten Internet freedom, security, and stability, visit http://npi.li/internetfreedom.
Andrew Villeneuve, a 2005 Redmond High graduate, is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, a Redmond-based grassroots organization. Villeneuve can be reached at andrew@nwprogressive.org.
