Do you use Wikipedia, Gizmodo, Reddit, Google, Twitter? These sites are protesting the SOPA anti-piracy legislation brought before the US Congress and Wikipedia has taken the extra step of instituting a “blackout” today to express their opposition to SOPA.

If this piece of legislation is passed, it would likely grant content creators extraordinary power over the Internet, open up the potential for abuse of such resources and even a sort of “Internet blacklist”.

SOPA possesses the ability of intellectual property owners in media, like movie studios and large record labels, to effectively stop foreign sites against whom they have a copyright claim registered. According to Gizmodo: “If Warner Bros., for example, says that a site in Italy is torrenting a copy of The Dark Knight, the studio could demand that Google remove that site from its search results, that PayPal no longer accept payments to or from that site, that ad services pull all ads and finances from it, and—most dangerously—that the site’s ISP prevent people from even going there.”

Gizmodo further outlines the situation: “All it required was a single letter claiming a “good faith belief” that the target site has infringed on its content. Once Google or PayPal or whoever received the quarantine notice, they would have five days to either abide or to challenge the claim in court. Rights holders still have the power to request that kind of blockade, but in the most recent version of the bill the five day window has softened, and companies now would need the court’s permission.”

Many of us take for granted the right and leisure to access these prominent websites and don’t realize the impact of political haranguing behind the scenes in the intellectual property owner debate.

What are your thoughts on this SOPA protest undertaken by prominent Internet websites today? Join the conversation and post your thoughts.