If you are cruising on the internet, and see some of your favorite internet sites blacked out, it’s due to PIPA and SOPA, and no those are not European girls, you dated on your backpacking trip through Europe.

If you go to Craigslist wait about 5-10 seconds and there will be a continue to the website button, Wikipedia is a little harder, is you use that site for research. When going to Wikipedia, hit the escape key once the page loads, this will stop the page from loading to the black page.

For those that don’t know Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) is a congressional bill waiting on the floor of congress, waiting to be passed. To sum up what the bill is:

• Gives the government the right to unilaterally censor foreign websites.
• Gives copyright holders the right to issue economic takedowns and bring lawsuits against website owners and operators, if those websites have features that make it possible to post infringing content.
• Makes it a felony offense to post a copyrighted song or video.

This bill turns us all into criminals. If it passes, then you either stop using the Internet, or you simply hope that you never end up in the crosshairs, because if you’re targeted, you will be destroyed by this bill. You don’t have to be a big, mean, nasty criminal — common Internet usage is effectively criminalized under this law. This bill will kill American innovation and development of the Internet, as it will become too risky to do anything of value. It is toxic and dangerous, and should not, under any circumstances, be supported.

If you would like to read the full bill click here.