As of 5am GMT this morning online database Wikipedia became inaccessible as the site stages a protest against internet piracy laws in the United States for 24 hours.
Wikipedia - the online home of 3.8 million articles - is used by 100 million Engish speaking people across the globe every day and remains the sixth most visited website in the world.
However, today’s visitors to the online encyclopedia will be greeted with the below message, encouraging them to join the protest and contact Congress.
Wikipedia is campaigning against SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) alongside PIPA (the Protect Intellectual Property Act), the latter of which remains under legislation consideration by the U.S. Senate.
It is understood that those against SOPA and PIPA feel they impose unfair and unattainable responsibility on websites such as Wikipedia to check that material on their sites does not infringe copyright laws.
The law currently states that if a website removes pirated content once it has been notified by the copyright holder then they are not liable for damages incurred.
Interestingly, the legislation has received support from media giants such as Rupert Murdoch whilst Silicon Valley residents, e.g. Google and Facebook, remain against it.
Only time will tell which laws are passed.
