Wikipedia Goes Offline to Protest Anti-Piracy Bill

This morning I went to look up something on Wikipedia and got a lump in my throat when I remembered that they were taking themselves offline to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  But luckily for me Wikipedia's blackout protest is on Wednesday, January 18, not today.

SOPA's aim is to stop music and movie piracy by blocking website via the domain name server (DNS) system which controls how you get to every web server on the Internet.  The intent is to be block piracy web sites by removing their DNS entry to make it difficult, but hardly impossible, to access them. 

On the face this sounds like a very noble gesture to protect the art and creative content of artists and movie studios.  But by interfering with the DNS system, which allows free access to websites, we are going down a path which we would soon realize that don't want to go down. SOPA would set a precedent of allowing law makers to control of the DNS system to block ideas which some may find offensive or disagreeable. 

I strongly oppose people stealing music or movies.  Artists, actors, writers, musicians and film makers should be fairly compensated for their creative products.  Piracy is wrong and criminal.

But there are many other ways to fight piracy and protect artists.  Government censorship of the DNS system shouldn't be one of them.