Wikipedia goes dark for 24 hours to protest anti-piracy legislation

Here's what Wikipedia looks like this morning:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/18/wikipedia-goes-dark-for-24-hours-to-protest-us-web-piracy-bills/
"The protest is aimed at the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate."

Image: Giovanni Sades / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This is a tough issue. Setting the proper balance isn't easy. As an author, who collects royalties, I am against copyright infringement. As an academic, who teaches classes, I want maximum access to information and teaching tools at the least inconvenience. I want my students to have access at affordable prices.

One can appreciate the entertainment industry's concerns. But let's ask ourselves: are these guys starving?

Here is Forbes's "Celebrity 100": http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/53/Compen_Salary.html

Here's a list of all-time box-office film grosses: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

Here's a list of the top grossing record albums of all time: http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_sold_albums.html

Income inequality has regressed back to what it was 100 years ago. The hard-won gains of the middle and lower classes over the past 100 years have been erased. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/income-inequality_n_1032632.html
So says a report from the COngressional Budget Office:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf

One thing the 99% still have going for us is cheap to free access to information on the Internet. Now the moneyed interests want to tie that up in legal knots. Using the courts to do it failed, as Righthaven has learned. So, of course, the big corporations have turned to their pawns and partners-in-crime in the Congress for help.

Significant push back in recent days, however, seems to be encouraging Congress to back off of the more draconian provisions of the proposed laws. As I say, being an author myself, I appreciate copyright protection. But statutes which give the top 1% the Internet, along with everything else that they control, would be anti-democratic, anti-First Amendment, and even anti-creativity... since it would have a chilling effect of creative young people, who would be intimidated by such laws and the powers they propose give police, such as the power of prior restraint (i.e., shutting down a website before adjudication).