Worldwide Blackout for a Free Internet

SOPA means Stop Online Piracy Act while PIPA means Protect Intelectual Property Act, and both bills are being discussed right now at the U.S. Congress, SOPA in the House of Representatives and PIPA in the Senate.

The idea behind these proposed acts is to attack the problem of online piracy, which in principle should be a good thing, right? The problem is that to be successful against piracy, the laws would completely rewrite the rules of the internet and these tech companies fear that it will destroy its biggest asset: its freedom.

SOPA and PIPA are not the first efforts against online piracy, the media companies which have been lobbying hard to push the laws (as they are the most affected by piracy), have succeed in other countries as Spain, where the Ley Sinde has been enacted just last week.

In Mexico, we have the Ley Doring, named after Federico Doring, the senator who proposed it. The law is in essence the same thing, an effort to fight piracy that could criminalize anyone that share some piece of information without knowing that is breaking the law.

At pv pulse we discussed about blacking out our website in support of the protests around the world, but we thought that we could do more good informing about the issue. However, we are against SOPA, PIPA, Ley Sinde, Ley Doring and any law that is against the free spirit of the internet.