SOPA and PIPA: The Blackout

January 18, 2012 was a day for the history books. Several sites went black in protest to these two pieces of legislation. The result was tremendous. The phone systems at Congress were heavily overloaded and nearly crashed.
For more info, I have provided several links:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/18/0834219/ask-slashdot-what-can-you-do-about-sopa-and-pipa

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/16/1433222/sopa-and-pipa-so-far

http://vimeo.com/31100268

(A video about Pipa)

http://start.toshiba.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9SBE2F81%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=915

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/18/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

http://www.latimes.com/business/internet-protest-gallery,0,5151277.photogallery

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/sopa-blackout-sopa-and-pipa-lose-three-co-sponsors-in-congress.html

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/story/2012-01-18/SOPA-PIPA-protest-reaction/52641560/1

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/18/technology/sopa_protest/?source=cnn_bin

(Several news links about the protest in general)

http://www.geekologie.com/2012/01/we-didnt-order-that-the-stop-online-pira.php

(another blogger's thoughts on SOPA)

http://gizmodo.com/5877000/what-is-sopa

(Interesting article that helps explain SOPA in layman terms)

http://lifeaftersopa.cheezburger.com/5689446912

http://sopastrike.com/

(To see the full list of participating sites)

Now after reading up on this, you could be asking yourself, Did the Protest work?
I just provide you with two simple article links that reddit.com posted:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/pipa-support-collapses-with-13-new-opponents-in-senate.ars

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/technology/web-protests-piracy-bill-and-2-key-senators-change-course.html?_r=2

The answer is of course yes. Several Congressmen have changed their opinions on where they stand. We have gained a small victory. But the battle is not over. If you go to that sopastrike.com site, you can find a timeline about these bills. There is still going to be a vote over them.

Lastly, I leave you with these two final links:

http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/sopa.txt

(Pirate Bay press release about the issue)

http://capnsteak.tumblr.com/

(I have provided some photos of the blacked out sites)

EDIT: An interesting article from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

EDIT EDIT: The chairman of the MPAA and his thoughts on the blackout
http://www.mpaa.org/resources/c4c3712a-7b9f-4be8-bd70-25527d5dfad8.pdf
A petition to investigate said chairman of bribery
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/22/1945243/white-house-petition-to-investigate-dodd-for-bribery
and lastly, the small defeat of sopa
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/01/20/209210/sopa-goes-back-to-the-drawing-board-pipa-postponed

~Captain Steak