Wikimedia supports American Censorship Day
Today (Wednesday, November 16, 2011) is an important day in Washington, DC.
This morning, hearings take place regarding the “Internet Blacklist Bill” – a bill that, if approved, would overturn laws relating to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor, and would allow any government or corporation to block a website, remove it from a search engine, and/or cut it off from payment processors or advertisers. In response to these hearings, organizations like Wikimedia, Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, and many more are joining together to declare American Censorship Day.
If approved, this bill would have disastrous effects for Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Why is this bill an issue for a project like Wikipedia?
In a nutshell, Wikipedia relies on Creative Commons licenses and a series of established, community-led open collaboration processes to ensure that its information and media are a part of free culture, and that copyrighted materials (which may inadvertently end up on Wikipedia or its sister projects) can be quickly and effectively removed so we remain in compliance with US copyright law. Our global, volunteer community understands these laws well – maybe better than any other online community on the net – and they work hard to ensure that everything on Wikipedia and its sister sites complies with the law.
The Internet Blacklist Bill would change all of that. The bill would allow corporations, organizations, or the government to order an internet service provider to block an entire website simply due to an allegation that the site posted infringing content. In addition, sites like Wikipedia could be required to monitor for any “banned” links, resulting in delegated proactive censorship of the Web, not to mention significant additional costs to Wikipedia, a site of a non-profit charity. Useful international sources of knowledge and information – which often serve as a basis for our articles and projects – could be blacklisted if rights owners simply felt that there was some infringing content. Individual contributors could face criminal liability for posting or sharing a copyright work for what we consider to be common fair-use situations. The DMCA system, which allows Wikimedia and its volunteer community to quickly remove copyright-violating material at the request of the copyright owner, would be overturned. In short, our users and all of our projects, would be forced to operate in an untenable legislative environment, putting Wikipedia at the beck and call of the rights owners as opposed to the distribution of free knowledge. Simply put, this bill is a reckless and burdensome model in Internet censorship.
The future of Wikipedia, the free knowledge movement, and tens of thousands of open and free projects is at stake, and we must stand up to oppose this bill. Join us in these efforts by spreading the word. If you are in the United States, contact your local government representative, and take a stand on American Censorship Day.
Jay Walsh, Communications
You should create a change.org petition and also make this a Facebook event. If you want people to contact their government reps, make it easy for them. Create an on-line petition that people can click to sign.
I support Wiki
Wikipedia is very well known among people as search engine,it contains information that students use for research projects and many others as well as me read these articles to educate themselves.
Its a shame if this site gets blocked, people have the right to be able to find answers and wikipedia has them.
[...] has come out in support of American Censorship Day, an online protest against the bill taking place tomorrow (November 16). [...]
Wikipedia isn’t the only online encyclopedia that would be impacted. Community wiki’s such as Fairfaxpedia (www.fairfaxpedia.com) and Cvillepedia (www.cvillepedia.org) would be threatened too. They’re vital for providing information on local issues that otherwise often go unnoticed.
Take the whole website down for a day as a celebration to the cencorship day. And attention would be tremendous.
Hoodwinking of wikemedia would prove futile; the world will stand united for wike media.
To the people who want an easy way to write to their representatives, just click on the “American Censorship Day” link above and follow the instructions. Every voice helps.
Seconding what Colleen said, the American Censorship Day makes sending a letter to your reps as easy as entering your zip code. There have been various petitions circulated online, and congress has ignored them. Take DIRECT action, call or e-mail your congresspeople with American Censorship Day’s help!
The freedom starts with knowledge.
I think “censoring” the Wikipedia Logo as http://americancensorship.org/ described would draw much attention. We don’t need to take the whole site down.
[...] Wikimedia Foundation Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. Taggato con: american, censorship, censura, day, [...]
If you really want to protest, you should stop your services for 24 hours, so people see how life without wikipedia would feel like. That should awake people to action.
That’s an extreme solution, and it’s not really enviable. Especially after the italian wikipedia episode.
The disturbing part is that material must be removed following “an allegation”, with no proof or court involved. I could allege that Wikipedia was copied wholesale from my website, and demand the entire thing be taken down.
Wikipedia should be more careful with what it post, it should not allow anonymous contributors, there could be an internal beta version, which could be checked before any edit goes public. That Wikipedia is non-profit is no excuse. Wikipedia should rise to ensure stringent quality control. Just as one wouldn’t shop lift, Wikipedia editors too shouldn’t steal from copyrighted material. It is as simple as that. Jay Walsh, it is Wikipedia’s noblesse oblige, popularity brings responsibility.
Anonymous doesn’t just mean those whose are not logged in but it means those whose are hiding behind usernames!
[...] [Fondation] La Wikimedia Fondation soutient la cause de la journée de la censure aux USA ce mercredi [lien] [...]
I certainly see the practical problem to continuing Wiki if this passes.
That said, Wiki has been living with a legal fiction and not taking responsibility for what it publishes. (E.g. BLP abuse.) Normal publishers, newspapers are legally accountable for what is put out. On wiki, Jimbo can just blame the authors and take no responsibility.
It is a little like Napster’s file sharing. They said they were not abusing music copyright…just providing the swapping place. Well…look what happened to Napster.
I say this not to be critical…and perhaps I even support Wiki in the end. Just that this stuff is not as simple as people think.
[...] Wikimedia, one of the largest and broadest-reaching educational projects in the world, which is why we have officially come out against the bill as well. One of the things that I have been slow to learn — and that not many people know — is [...]