On the official Minecraft site, the front page is splashed with a white-on-red background message ”PIPA & SOPA? How about NOPA!”
Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, the site is frozen save an information page detailing just what is going on with the bills. Wikipedia warns that the bills aren’t “dead” just because the White House has declared it would not sign the bills into law, stating, “No, neither SOPA nor PIPA is dead. On January 17th, SOPA’s sponsor said the bill will be discussed in early February. There are signs PIPA may be debated on the Senate floor next week. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. In many jurisdictions around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation that prioritizes overly-broad copyright enforcement laws, laws promoted by power players, over the preservation of individual civil liberties.”
Wikipedia then advises US citizens to contact their representatives. As for non-US citizens? The site advises it’s just as important to contact their ”local State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or similar branch of government.” The site adds, ”Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and any similar legislation. SOPA and PIPA will affect sites outside of the United States, and actions to sites inside the United States (like Wikipedia) will also affect non-American readers – like you. Calling your own government will also let them know you don’t want them to create their own bad anti-Internet legislation.”
Reddit’s protest is simpler, simply stating on the front page, “Today, for 12 hours, reddit.com goes dark to raise awareness of two bills in congress: H.R.3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” and S.968 “PROTECT IP”, which could radically change the landscape of the Internet. These bills provide overly broad mechanisms for enforcement of copyright which would restrict innovation and threaten the existence of websites with user-submitted content, such as reddit.” The site offers a link to American Censorship as well as the current anti-SOPA online petition.
Mozilla, which created the internet browser Firefox, has shut down its site as well, with an auto-forward to a protest page that links to the Stop Internet Blacklist Bills protest site. Google.com features a censor bar over the Google logo. Clicking the bar takes the user to Google’s own anti-SOPA page.
Finally, Red 5 Studios has taken their protest one step further: they will not attend the E3 2012 conference this year. E3 is run by ESA, which is one of the main backers of the bill.
