Editing 1005: SOPA

{{comic
| number    = 1005
| date      = January 18, 2012
| title     = SOPA
| image     = sopa.png
| imagesize = 
| titletext   = In protest of SOPA, I'm currently getting totally blacked out.
}}

== Explanation ==

SOPA, the {{w|Stop Online Piracy Act}} and PIPA, the {{w|Protect IP Act}}, were a pair of controversial bills being considered by the United States government late 2011 and early 2012.  The bills contained the ability for the US government to deny American internet users access to certain sites at a judge's request.  These would be activated if the government could prove to a court that a site was primarily used to harbor illegally distributed copyrighted goods, such as video games, music, and TV shows.

Many people considered this to be censorship and were concerned that this could instead be used by larger corporations to squelch smaller competing sites who may not have the resources to challenge a "take-down notice" in court.

As the bills gained infamy online, many popular websites and web comics participated in a mass protest on January 18, 2012, to announce their displeasure with the bill in an attempt to convince the House of Representatives to reverse their judgement, which had at the time been considered likely to pass if drafted.  This was xkcd's participation in the protest. [[Randall]] discusses that as someone who would have better copyright protection that he would not have ever gotten popular if fans had not been allowed to distribute the comic.

[[File:sopa_hidden_message.png||upright=2|The comic image with the message revealed.]]

In typical xkcd fashion, this comic contains several layers of depth that may not be immediately obvious to the casual observer.  In this instance, the apparently solid-black region contains a hidden image revealed with simple brightness+contrast manipulation, with [[Black Hat]] saying "A message from sysadmins everywhere: Seriously, don't screw with DNS. If you break this internet, we are ''<u>not</u>'' making you a new one."  This stems from the fact that sites could be ordered taken down by allowing manipulation of the {{w|DNS}} system itself, effectively making a site completely disappear from the web.  This court-enforced DNS manipulation was considered by many technical professionals to damage the underlying structure of the internet, as well as potentially criminalizing recent work to improve its security.

The image text referred to a common theme across protesting sites: a blackout of the internet.  Sites such as Google changed to a black background, while Wikipedia prevented access by linking their sites to a black page with white text explaining their participation. This may also be a pun with the term "getting totally blacked out" which could simply mean "getting completely drunk", as "to black out" can mean to lose consciousness or loose all memories from a specific period of time, for instance because of too much alcohol.

After the protest, the bills were postponed from being drafted on January 20, 2012.

==Transcript==
:[don't censor the web]
:[Hidden in the background of the above text is Black Hat]
:Black Hat: A message from sysadmins everywhere:
:Black Hat: Seriously, don't screw with DNS.  If you break this internet, we are ''not'' making you a new one.
:I make my living drawing xkcd, which wouldn't have been possible if people hadn't been able to freely share my comics with each other all over the internet. As a copyright holder and small business owner, I oppose SOPA and PIPA. See the links below to learn more.
:[Randall Munroe's signature, with a little drawing of [[Cueball]] on one of the tails]

{{Comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Randall Munroe]]
[[Category:Politics]]