STOP SOPA/PIPA: MMA goes dark tomorrow
MadMikesAmerica joins with friends and partners such as REDDIT, WIKIPEDIA, IMGUR, RAW STORY and others tomorrow by “going dark.” You will not be able to access our site between the hours of 8AM and 8PM, January 18, 2012. We MUST STOP SOPA. It is censorship and government control beyond any we have seen!!
If SOPA or PIPA become law MMA and MILLIONS of other web sites and blogs will no longer be able to do business by bringing you the latest news, and our unique perspectives on life and living.
Instead of going into a long winded rant I am going to let Raw Story do it for me, because that shows how respect and partnership works between internet companies. We don’t need Washington politicians and Hollywood big shots telling us how to do business.
Here’s our story compliments of the eloquent Roxanne Cooper, publisher of Raw Story:
The news doesn’t stop. But if Congress passes the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, your access to it could — and the owners and publisher of Raw Story won’t stand for that. In protest of Congress’ interest in passing the legislation, Raw Story will join with sites like BoingBoing, Reddit, Wikipedia and IMGUR and black out from 8 am ET until 8 pm ET tomorrow, just to demonstrate what the government could end up doing to Americans in service of corporate interests (and their political donations and lobbying dollars).
Raw Story is, as always, a small, privately-owned company, so we understand uniquely the problems caused by people who reprint our articles without permission or attribution, taking the intellectual property of our company and our employees without so much as a pageview in return. But our reporting has shown, time and again, that neither SOPA nor PIPA will help small companies like ours do much, if anything, to combat the theft of our intellectual property — heck, even the movie industry can’t say that its profits are actually down, despite rampant piracy. SOPA/PIPA is simply a cudgel supported by large, corporate interests who would rather spend money lobbying for outmoded legislation intended to stall the internet’s engine for change rather than learning a new way to operate in a modern world.
But even worse than SOPA/PIPA doing nothing to help us assert our rights, the legislation could actually harm our small company and interfere with our mission to provide readers with news ignored by the mainstream media — like, ironically, the harm that could be wrought by SOPA/PIPA. In an online environment regulated by this corporate-designed legislation, one commenter, even a sock puppet, posting copyrighted material in a comment thread that isn’t immediately set upon by our dedicated volunteer comment moderation team, and Raw Story could go dark — even permanently. That should be unacceptable to anyone who uses the Internet, including our elected officials… but somehow it’s not.
Going dark is a radical step for an online-only news organization, and it is one that Raw Story’s management doesn’t take lightly. It wasn’t easy to tell our reporters and editors to take time off tomorrow and pretend that the news isn’t happening. But we’d rather tell them to take tomorrow easy and come back twice as strong on Thursday than have to tell them later that the government pulled the plug on our whole organization because of SOPA/PIPA — on which we once reported as though it didn’t affect us as much as our readers.
If you’re as concerned as we are, there’s something you can do, too. Click here to find and email your Representative (use the little envelope icon that appears to the right of the picture) and here to find and email your Senators (use the “Web form” link). Tell them you don’t support SOPA/PIPA or the politicians who do, and ask them to vote against the legislation if given the opportunity.
Many thanks to Wikipedia for their SOPA and PIPA definitions. Please contact your representatives and tell them to VOTE NO on SOPA and PIPA!
[…] 2. MadMikesAmerica – Stop SOPA/PIPA […]
We will be here when lights come back on Mike.
This is you Mike, all the things no matter what the price this is you brother. In the wind man. In the wind.
Hey Mike! Have you gone out of your head? This will cut your search engine stream. I respect what you do man but hell are you sure??
Thanks guys. Your support is appreciated more than you know.
Mike, thank you for taking this stand and helping to stop the insanity!
Proud of you, boss. Crying a little, but more proud than anything else.
You go man ..know it’s going to cost you $$$ Believe!!
Mike I take my first peek at MMA about 7Am and my last peek about 10PM. I admire you for what you’re doing but I will miss my MMA tomorrow. See you on Thursday! SAY NO TO SOPA!