Because site blackouts are a bit like those chain letters about starving people in third world countries or AIDs, they salve your own conscience while achieving very little.
Most people here undoubtedly already know what SOPA is, and if they do not then they probably read Wikipedia. WoW insider is nowhere near as high profile a website as Wikipedia is, and blacking itself out would do nothing but annoy people as if its readers are still, at this point, unaware of what is going on then frankly they aren't going to be persuaded by this website going black.

Because this place is actually a business, with people who get paid to work here, and advertisers who pay for ad space. There are most likely contracts in place for the payment to and from both, and if they pulled their site for a day of protest, the people who paid for ad space today could get some strong legal grounds for a law suit.

I support the blackouts, Joystiq ran an editorial this morning: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/18/were-not-blacking-out-today-but-we-still-dont-like-sopa/ People following individual writers on Twitter would know that most, if not all of us, are very much against it.

But let's be realistic -- sure, we're big in our little corner of the internet. But compared to Wikipedia, Reddit, Google, etc... we're small fish. The best way for us to help is to draw attention to it in The Queue (seriously, this is by far the most logical way given traffic and community participation).

"Don't let them take our porn away. Call your congressman today."

Frankly, any member of Congress that would be concerned about (or even aware of) WoW Insider participating in such a protest is already voting against SOPA and PIPA anyway.

Just like the joystick article you could have used a blackout graphic for the article header graphics. I would have shown your support.

Blackouts DO help causes. The Italian version of Wikipedia did a blackout some months ago to protest a bill that was working its way through their governement. Result was a quick backoff from the bill. HOWEVER. While a complete shutdown does draw attention to a cause, doing a partial shutdown the way Wikipedia and Google are also draws attention without risking ticking many of their customers off. Atm, considering the number of people I've talked to who had no idea what these bills were or what they were capable of (and sadly, I'm including some people who were fairly tech-savvy), I support anything that brings these bills to public attention.

P.S. Did you know that until a day or so ago, SOPA/PIPA hadn't gotten any attention in the broadcast news channels? The sole exception was some guy who had his own news show on...CNN, I think? and did a segment on them.

Didn't Obama already veto the thing? Maybe I missed something as a non-American, but the black-out's coming off like a storm in a teacup.

@ AL ~

SOPA was pulled from the US House of Representatives' voting schedule and shelved "until a consensus can be reached" which is American Politician for "until people stop paying so much attention to this issue."

PIPA is still up for vote in the US Senate.

The White House has indicated it will veto either or both bills in their current form.

It's not on Obama's desk, so he can't veto it. But he has objected to the wording.

I worry that sites like wowinsider and mmo-champ might be more susceptible to the ill-effects of SOPA than the joystiq article states. What if Blizzard/Activision decides they want all world of warcraft related news and discussion limited to their own website? They could very quickly sue AOL or Curse and they would be blocked by the US government. Leaked MOP Beta information - that's a banning. Data mining 4.3 patch items - that's a banning. Linking to a video of user generated in-game content - that's a banning.

I don't think Blizzard has a problem with any of these sites, but SOPA would provide them a quick path to block all news releated to their IP.

Music companies have already been issuing takedown notices for songs/videos belonging to other music companies, so it's not that farfetched that a rival MMO could have sites like WowInsider taken down in the hopes of disrupting their fanbase.

In any case, if you want to learn more about the potentially wide-ranging effects of these pieces of legislation, Ars Technica is running an all SOPA/PIPA protest edition today that's discussing both the past history of legislation of this type, its primary beneficiaries/targets, the problems inherent in copyright maximalism of this type, and how to contact your congresscritters to register your opinion.

And has been reported by others, SOPA would allow any movie studio or record company to shut youTube down.

There is a very important difference between the words "The Administration does not support..." and "The Administration will veto..."

Just because obama has voiced that he does not support it in its current form, does not mean he will/would veto it.

Wait till a year from now, when candidates don't have to worry about an imminent election... this crap will be right back on the floor of congress, waiting to be voted on, and the only difference will be the people voting on it won't care because by the time they are up for re-election again the media will have completely different issues they will draw your attention to. Very few people will break the mold enough to remember SOPA at that point

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