Probably for US people only.

Well, it's not.

If you live in a country with more than 5 digits in ZIP-code, just delete the last digits.

What is a zip-code?

I don't support the government getting anywhere near regulating the internet. They have no business there. There is no reason they couldn't extend some enforcement provisions in EXISTING copywrite law to some of these services. There is no reason to give the government censorship powers to silence whoever they want.

It's a type of elderberry.

Or use this site it has out of US residency option as well. http://americancensorship.org/

Zoning something something. I'd look it up for you but Wikipedia is blacked out.

It is a location code used by the US postal service to route mail. It's an antique, really.

Mine is E I E I O

Wikipedia Black out

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
Make your voice heard

GaiaOnline Black out

What is SOPA?
SOPA is an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act which is a bill (House Bill 3261) that was introduced into the US House of Representatives in Oct. 2011 by House Judiciary Committee Chair Representative Lamar Smith and various co-sponsors.

Although the SOPA bill has, since this writing, been tabled and is no longer going to be voted on by the U.S. government, it remains an important topic of discussion for all citizens of the internet. If the SOPA bill, or any similar bill, were to pass into law, it would allow the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to get court orders against any website accused of allowing or enabling copyright infringement to occur on the site.

If this SOPA bill protects copyright infringement, why are so many people against it?
Protecting the rights of artists and creators is very important, no doubt about it - nobody disputes this fact. The problem is that the SOPA bill is very broadly written, and gives governmental agencies a ton of power to control what a website may or may not display. Moreover, the way the bill is written could prevent advertising networks and third-party payment companies from doing business with the website, could require search engines to block searches for the site, and could require ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to block access to the site. This bill could also require ISPs top block IP addresses from being accessed from their service. In short, if this bill (or any similar bill) passes, you may not have freedom of choice in what sites you may or may not visit, or what content you may or may not see online.

How would this SOPA bill affect Gaia?
Being a site that supports user-generated content, Gaia Online could potentially be held liable for all content posted by its members. Currently, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (a.k.a. DMCA) makes copyright holders notify a website that his/her intellectual property rights are being violated, and the website then complies with removal of said content if copyright violations are found. If the SOPA bill were ever to pass, the copyright owner would be allowed to go straight to the courts to seek legal remedy for removal of his/her content before talking to the website. A judge could then block access to a website based on this alleged enabling of copyright theft.

This means that Gaia would quite possibly have to review all content submitted by members before it could be posted. This monitoring would have to include posts, threads, guild posts, guild topics, and private messages. Gaians would, in all likelihood, no longer be able to freely post art, comments, or send messages to friends without us having to read and review that content first. It would also mean that most likely Gaians would no longer be allowed to link to other websites on Gaia given that the content of that website might contain copyright infringing material.

I'm not from the U.S. so why should I care about a piece of U.S. legislation?
Great question! You need to care about this bill (or any bill like it) because it directly affects the ability of all people, regardless of where you live, to have free access to internet sites. If you are living outside of the U.S. and want to access certain sites, you may not be able to do so as any sites found to be violating the law may be blocked from being accessed by anyone regardless of his/her nationality.

I'd like to learn more about SOPA - where can I get some good information on this bill?
The following websites and articles contain informative pieces on SOPA and its potential effects on the internet and internet community culture:
Stop American Censorship: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=http%3A%2F%2Famericancensorship.org%2F
Wikipedia Article on SOPA: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FStop_Online_Piracy_Act
Electronic Frontier Foundation: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eff.org%2F
Center for Democracy and Technology: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdt.org%2F
The White House Official Response to the SOPA Bill: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwwws.whitehouse.gov%2Fpetitions%23%21%2Fresponse%2Fcombating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet

I'd like to contact my local representative to tell him/her that I do not support this SOPA bill, or any similar bills. How can I do that?
There are many ways you can contact your local governmental representative and let him/her know that you do not support the SOPA bill. There are links at various sites that will help you get in touch with your representative:

Electronic Frontier Foundation has a tool that will let you know which representative to contact, and how to contact him/her about SOPA: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=https%3A%2F%2Faction.eff.org%2Fo%2F9042%2Fp%2Fdia%2Faction%2Fpublic%2F%3Faction_KEY%3D8173

Stop American Censorship has various links for both U.S. and non-U.S. residents to contact local representatives about SOPA or sign petitions against the SOPA bill: http://www.gaiaonline.com/gaia/redirect.php?r=http%3A%2F%2Famericancensorship.org%2F+

EDIT: you'd think a simple copy and paste wouldn't = this coded stuff showing, if any mods have the time could they fix this post ? please

Mod: Fixed.

Just create an empty file, paste that inside, save it as [somethin].html and open it. Quote as needed.

I'm almost hoping this gets passed, just to see what would happen. It's amazing I haven't seen anything on the news about this, not that I watch it very often, but it's such a big deal. This should be a spectacle in the US; it should be history in the making.

First the NDAA, now SOPA and PIPA? This whole thing and the general function of the U.S. government, particularly the Legislative and Executive branches, in regards to the recent slew of unconstitutional crap they've been flinging around as law in a recent months is further proof of the disconnect between the U.S. government and the people they govern. They're completely out of touch with the public and even their own founding constitution with them., rather rapidly at this point, just shredding constitutional rights without any meaningful way for us to oppose? The American public is generally concerned with trivial things such as the birth of a random celebrity's baby or how expensive of a dress the first lady of the U.S. wears and I would applaud what Wikipedia's done if only to actually spread awareness of what the media is afraid to touch. This government clearly now operates independently of the interests of its governed population while its governed population isn't causing enough ruckus over the issue which now threatens not only to tear away previously inherent rights, but to crush the voice of an entire generation. What's the solution?

Just called my representatives. Both of their secretaries were nice, albiet the conversation was somewhat rushed. I honestly wasn't sure what to say, so I just told them to put me down as a resounding no to SOPA/PIPA.

I think I'll call again later.

Ablock stops wikipedia's "blackout"

ahh okay, thanks for making it simple the ndaa sounds like a bigger threat to me though, sopa more like a distraction

so after reading what i posted ...

does this mean if some one were to make a topic about "Star Wars" for example the whole site would get shut down ?? if so 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 x this by infinity = how much percent I am against it

I think the post would have to be removed or else it would be taken down (I think).

Theoretically it's possible, but not the intent of the bill. The intent is to stop sites dedicated to sharing copyrighted stuff. Forums would be at risk because they are open to large volumes of discussion of copyrighted stuff.

It seems like one of the flaws of the bill (can't say for sure, not reading the legalese) is that it's pretty effortless to make a case against a site, but harder for the site to defend itself. All a big company has to do is say "Hey, these guys are sharing copyrighted stuff!" The site then has to prepare a legal defense against what amounts to finger pointing.

From what I can tell this is entirely correct, SOPA is meant as a distraction to PIPA it is the "more evil" bill so people will ignore PIPA and it can pass. IIRC it's a common business practice to do things like this, as an anology if you ask someone for $50,000 for a car at first and then they "talk you down" to $25,000 the $25,000 seems like quite a deal. However, in reality, they were really always pushing for you to pay the $25k.

yeah, that's what I figured too. They come up with something they want, then add some [censored] that everyone protests against, and when they remove it again, everyone is happy.
The world wants to be deceived.

from were i stand , what happened in the middle east because of facebook with coutries falling to ashes in 48 hours after

standing for 40 years only because of one software i think the American scientists are worried about things spicially

with the 2012 rumers maybe and the spread of panic ?

I'm not too worried about 2012 and doomsday scenarios.

I am actually rather inspired by the Arab Spring, OWS, even the Tea Party to an extent.

2012 is shaping up to be the year of change.

What its going to look like when the dust settles and 2013 rears its ugly head is anyone's guess.

Oh god the irony. Finding an "illiegal" or not suppoed to be avalible way around the blackout of wiki is just hillarious. I know I've been using wiki all day, though I suppose I'm already in the know enough to be against SOPA, PIPA, and any other crap of this kind. It wasn't too long ago in Canada we were having the big telecom companies push through some [censored] regulations to try and meter our internet. I beleive we've put a stop to that though, but now there's these new bills. Always SOMETHING! I swear, it's never ending with corporations.

Or just press ESC when you go to an article.

No, they purposely made it easy to circumvent the blackout.

Sounds like ancient Rome doesn't it?