SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a proposed House bill that would help end the online piracy problem, fighting counterfeit products and the trafficking of copyrighted intellectual properties. The passage of the bill would allow the Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites that are believed to enable copyright infringement. The senate has a similar bill known as PIPA (Protect IP Act). Many internet users are up in arms against the bills, calling them unconstitutional, believing they encroach on the First Amendment. Many major websites are “blacking out” in protest of the bill on Jan. 18, including:

Wikipedia– Major online free-to-use encyclopedia
Reddit– User submitted social news site
Boing Boing– Group blog
Mozilla– Creators of the web browser Firefox
Imgur– Image sharing site

Members of online communities such as Blogspot and WordPress may choose to black their personal blogs by going here. Blogs that are blacked out will display only this message:

This site has been blocked in protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) two bills which will allow the government to censor the internet. Find out more at americancensorship.org or the video below. This website will return at 8pm.

Following an announcement by President Obama on Jan. 16th, SOPA has been shelved indefinitely, but internet users still consider PIPA a threat to their personal liberties.

UPDATE: As of Jan. 20, both SOPA and PIPA have been dropped, following a massive wave of protest from internet users.