Polish Wikipedia weighs up black-out

The Polish unit of the US company could join its bigger English-language sister if no changes to legislation governing anti-piracy on the internet are made.

Time is short, with the Polish Foreign Ministry slated to finalise the Polish version of international anti-piracy legislation next week.

SOPA and PIPA (Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act) are being read by US congress and senate.

Crucial for opponents to the legislation are amendments to the powers of state-agencies – and/or privately owned internet service providers (ISPs) – to regulate what can and cannot be accessed online.

Opponents such as Wikipedia say SOPA and PIPA – and their EU equivalent ACTA - will hit their freedom to operate and undermine freedom of information.

Facebook, Google and Wikipedia all this week protested against the legislation.

Wikipedia and other opponents of the legislation also argue that there has been no dialogue with the public on the proposed legislation

Gazeta Wyborcza reports that the German, French and Czech Wikipedia sites are also considering strike action.

Wikipedia’s Polish-language site gets hits of 9-10 million per month.(jh)