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Be Heard
Wikia wants your voice to be heard. Join us in opposing current SOPA and PIPA legislation so we continue the free exchange of ideas and learn together.
The SOPA and PIPA legislation aims to limit the Internet experiences you know and love. If passed, it will affect your future and the future of your Wikia communities.
Wikia supports finding ways to crack down on copyright infringement. We oppose SOPA and PIPA in their current form.
Why this matters to you and to Wikia
Unless you have been hiding under a rock, I'm sure all of you have been reading about SOPA and PIPA in the news. While SOPA -- the bill in the US House of Representatives -- has gotten most of the attention, it's sister legislation, PIPA -- the bill in the US Senate -- represents a similar approach, these bills are driven by the content industry and are aimed at combatting online piracy, protecting intellectual property rights of copyright holders and protecting jobs that are claimed to be affected.
The content industry's key objective with this proposed legislation is to stop foreign companies who make millions of dollars on the backs of unlicensed content or counterfeit goods. The air supply for these companies are search engines like google who enable people to find them in the first place, ISPs who host the offending sites and payment processors (like Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, etc) who deliver payments.
While the goals of SOPA and PIPA are clear and we support them, the way SOPA and PIPA attempt to accomplish the goals does not work for the internet and companies such as Wikia because:
- they assign legal liability to site owners for ALL user generated content -- Wikia would have to inspect and filter everything users upload -- all text, images or video for copyright infringement and prevent it from being posted. This would be almost impossible to do and would create a terrible user experience with long delays between content submissions, approval and posting. We would have to do this even though we are not a target of this legislation.
- they completely bypass today's notice/takedown provision of the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) where content owners can demand copyrighted content be taken down and site owners have to comply -- which was a carefully constructed approach that balances the needs of internet companies and the content industry. This will stifle innovation on the internet that has become the 7th largest sector driving the health of the economy.
- they deny site owners the due process of law by enabling DNS blacklisting based on any good faith assertion by an individual copyright owners. A site like Wikia could essentially disappear from the web because of the claim of a single content owner who asserted they saw infringing content on our site without recourse.
- they also compel payment processors to stop doing business with the web site in question. Wikia could have our entire revenue stream stopped because a single good faith assertion of infringement on a single page in Wikia.
- while the laws are aimed at foreign companies in general, they can be equally applied to US companies such as Wikia.
For more background on SOPA and PIPA and differing industry viewpionts, please read the content of this wiki. Also, if you have a viewpoint, please participate in the discussion, add content or create a blog.
How you can take action
- The best way to take action if you live in the US is to contact your representative and senator directly. There is no substitute for a phone call (as to speak to the staffer who can take feedback on SOPA or PIPA) or direct feedback in a town hall meeting (check the legsilator's website for schedules for these). You can also send an email. Use the text provided above or create your own. Particpate. Show up.
- Insist the major US television networks start covering SOPA & PIPA: Sign the petition
Wikia Sub-sites Blackout
Several wikis, notably the COD Wiki and the Elder Scrolls wiki who participated in the blackout on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 as a protest of the SOPA & PIPA bills. See Wiki Blackouts on Wikia for more.