Democratic Underground will go dark at 3am ET January 18 to protest SOPA and PIPA

[Rhiannon12866]

Source: DU.3

Democratic Underground will go dark for 18 hours on January 18, from 3am ET until 9pm ET, to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). During that time visitors will not be able to read or post on the site. We know that you depend on Democratic Underground to be there for you, and we did not take the decision to join this protest lightly.

Democratic Underground is an open, community-based website that depends on content provided by our visitors. That includes original content created by our members, and excerpts and links to content published elsewhere. Because of the work our members put into their posts here, and also because of our dependence on excerpts and links from elsewhere, we have a deep appreciation for content creators, and we understand the importance of protecting their work. The DU Administrators understand the importance of protecting copyrights -- we have always made a good faith effort to respect copyrights on this site, and we expect our members to do the same.

However, we here at Democratic Underground have first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be unfairly harassed in the name of copyright enforcement. Over the last year we have been a defendant in a high-profile copyright-trolling case in which we were threatened with tens of thousands of dollars of damages and the loss of our domain name, because one of our members posted a brief five-sentence excerpt of an article. The experience has made us extremely sensitive to the issue of out-of-control copyright enforcement, and we feel that we have a responsibility to add our voice to the protests taking place across the Internet.

During the downtime, we hope that you will take a moment and contact your representatives in Congress to let them know that you support an open Internet, and you oppose SOPA and PIPA. You can look up your representatives on the EFF website.

Thank you,

David Allen
Dave Allsopp
Brian Leitner
DU Administrators





Read more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1013812

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Thought we all need to know this, imagine this will affect DU.2 as well. :shrug: :kick:

[Divine Discontent]

1. hi! well, since site is unsupported maybe it'll stay up, but...

I would guess du2, though different software, is 'attached' by controls to DU3?

Hope we come back up when du3 does.

:wow:

[Rhiannon12866]

2. That was my thought, too.

I'm not great at these things, but it seems likely that DU.2 will be down, too, since they are linked. But I was also wondering if DU.2 will come back up again... :shrug: :hi:

[Rhiannon12866]

3. I'm also thinking that the DU Panic Room is still viable:

There haven't been any posts since October, but this is where DUers used to meet up when DU was down. When DU was inaccessible to most earlier this year, this is where I got instructions about accessing DU and it worked! :hi:

http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUPanicRoom/

[Divine Discontent]

9. yep. ive been there a few times over the years. how they go by quickly

glad we came back up after the protest shutdown!

:hug:

[ellisonz]

4. I just tried to post in the panic room.

Guess it has to be approved by a moderator. :shrug:

[Rhiannon12866]

5. I think you're right, though it has been awhile.

But it's not difficult to get approved. I did and I think I had a different name there. :hi:

[Sapphocrat]

6. It went dark? Thanks for the info; hadn't noticed. n/t

[Me.]

7. Glad You Let Is Know

Stopped any panic and thanks for the panic room link.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. You're more than welcome, thought everyone needed to know.

So we wouldn't panic, LOL. And it affected DU.2 exactly as it did DU.3. Now we know... :hi: