As most people have noticed by now, today much of the internet is protesting SOPA--a bill that aims to fight online copyright infringement by heavily censoring the internet. The issue isn't the desire to protect intellectual property, but the attempt to do so by putting the power of censorship into the hands of large media corporations in such a way that seriously threatens how the internet operates with no advantage to any rightsholders who aren't multi-million dollar companies.
Arstechnica.com is dedicating its site to coverage of SOPA today.
Google is linking its humorous censored logo to a page with relevant information.
Wikipedia has instituted a 24-hour blackout period in order to raise awareness.
While we certainly need to find ways to combat IP abuse, SOPA isn't a valid method of doing so. It doesn't promise to do anything productive to fix the problem while it does promise to hinder many of the industries the internet has allowed to flourish and cripple the growth of our online culture and economy.
SOPA is not a partisan issue, with support in Congress coming from both sides of the political fence and the online opposition movement coming from people of all political dispositions.
Please do some reading on the issue and contact a representative. If not enough people do we'll be heading towards a fractured internet in which many of the online businesses and services we know and appreciate would not have been able to come to pass.