NO WIKIPEDIA FOR YOU!

Hopefully you have an old-school encyclopedia handy for Wednesday. The giant open-source internet database, Wikipedia, will be unavailable on Wednesday as the site blacks itself out in protest over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in congress. Another senate version, known as the Protect IP (Intellectual Property) Act (PIPA) is also before the senate. 

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Hollywood is engaged in a battle royal against Silicon Valley, as Hollywood promotes the act as a means of stopping online piracy - which accounts for billions in annual lost revenue for the entertainment industry. 

However, Silicon Valley alleges that the bill is poorly crafted and while well meaning, can be abused and could cause entire web sites to be shut down at the slightest complaint. 

To be clear, nobody is condoning digital piracy, especially the illegal copying and "sharing" (theft) of intellectual property such as movies and music. However, critics of the bill say that it would force large internet entities such as Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on, to become police and to take responsibility for what their users do - or face penalties. 

The internet firms claim it will essentially lock down the internet and destroy the open sharing process that drives the internet. Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google said, "While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world."

To make the debate real and to encourage the public to oppose the act, several major websites, such as Wikipedia, Reddit, and TwitPic said they would go dark on Wednesday. 

Other websites such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have said they would not go dark citing the international scope of their websites and pointing out that SOPA, while significant, is still a domestic (single-nation) issue. 

It is unknown if the shutdown will have any real impact on Congress, but it should be enough to get the public talking - and that is what protest is all about. 

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