An excellent 11-minute documentary explaining how the bills would work, who’s behind them and why we should be concerned from New Left Media.
Meanwhile, protest works.
A spokeswoman for Google confirmed that 4.5 million people added their names to the company’s anti-SOPA petition today.
A total of 103,785 people signed We the People petitions asking the Obama Administration to protect an open and innovative internet. A petition asking President Obama to veto the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) got 51,689 signatures, while 52,096 people signed the “Stop the E-PARSITE Act” petition.
At one point today there were more than 270,000 Tweets per hour related to SOPA and PIPA, up 500 percent over Tuesday. There were over 2.4 million related tweets so far today.
PIPA support collapses, with 13 new Senators opposed, bringing the total number opposed to 33. And several SOPA co-sponsors in the House withdrew their support.
GigaOM has a SOPA website gallery: The day the Internet went dark.
Mother Jones rounds up SOPA jokes. NPR Social Media Strategist Andy Carvin kicked it off:
And Wired’s Threat Level warns, Don’t Declare Victory Yet:
Sure, the worst part of the proposals — mandated DNS redirecting of websites deemed dedicated to infringing activity — appear to be history. But there’s still plenty to protest, as we spelled out in an earlier story Wednesday, including possible mandatory orders for the nation’s ISPs to build a version of the Chinese Great Firewall to prevent users from visiting sites such as The Pirate Bay.
Most important, amended proposals are likely to rear their ugly heads soon in response to White House criticism of the Domain Name System features of the bills.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) says he will bring an amended version of SOPA to the House Judiciary Committee sometime in “February.” And Senate action on an amended PIPA, either on the floor or before the Senate Judiciary Committee, is tentatively scheduled next week.
An open letter to Washington from Artists and Creators who believe SOPA would hurt more than help.