A handful of large websites Including Nosy Ass will go dark on Wednesday 1/18/2012 to protest an anti-piracy bill that critics say will wreck the Internet as we know it.

Wikipedia, user-submitted news site Reddit, the blog  NosyAss.com and the Cheezburger network of comedy sites all plan to participate in the blackout. The protest is our response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill

The bill aims to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that fuel it. Its targets include “malicious” overseas sites like torrent hub The Pirate Bay, Kick Ass Torrents, which essentially operates as a trading ground for illegal downloads of movies and other digital content.

A similar bill called the Protect IP Act was approved by a Senate committee in May and is now pending before the full Senate.

Related articles

• Wikipedia To Go Dark In Protest Of SOPA (huffingtonpost.com)
• Wikipedia to join Web blackout protesting SOPA (news.cnet.com)
• Wikipedia confirms site blackout to protest SOPA anti-piracy bill (zdnet.com)