Two days ago, we blacked out our website in protest against the US legislation known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) & the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). We'd like to thank you for supporting our decision to do so. While we do not condone piracy, we would rather deal with it over the loss of a free and open internet. The end result of participating in such a drastic move along with major websites like Google, Wikipedia & Craigslist is that 7 million people signed Google's petition against both bills, 162 million people saw the Wikipedia blackout and 8 million of those people went on to get the contact information for their representatives. All in all it was the largest internet protest action to date and in effect has been successful.
Earlier this morning Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) tweeted that just like SOPA, voting on PIPA has been shelved indefinitely. While this is cause for celebration we're not out of the woods yet. The price of liberty is to remain ever vigilant against those who wish to take that liberty away. There will come another time when we are faced with that same threat from legislators who try to legislate technologies they do not understand. As a result, it's necessary that we all remain informed and not grow complacent.
