degrees of separation

I bet people were missing Wikipedia and the thousands of other sites that went dark in protest, in order to avoid going black permanently if the US passes laws to unmake the internet and cede its potential to handful of media outlets and copyright holders. Since when did a trade mark become a royal signet seal, a talisman that less about authorship (or royalties) and more akin to a deed or title, that's passed around like so many underwater mortgages, either held in jealous trust or readapted and repackaged with diminishing creativity? Nothing quite matches Wikipedia, not just as a reference source because it happens to be within easy reach, but also as a copilot, a navigator--whose future comes into question because of passing acquaintance with proprietary materials, no matter how far removed. A lot of time spent on the computer can be an aimless pursuit, but there are some, saving moments in between the predictable and necessary gears and cogs of unfiltered, immediate reporting and illimitless comparison.
That some websites are taking a stance on a politically pregnant issue, does raise questions of maintaining neutrality and insulating influence, but when pressed into free-determination over expurgation, there is the matter of self-defense, survival and keeping the entire substrate of the internet fertile and useful. Courts in the UK recently ruled that links do not constitute libel, and I wonder how citation, just as modern arts are sometimes dismissed as footnotes to the Classics, can mean guilt by association. Hobby and opinion should not be empowered at the expense of another's entitlement and no one is proposing otherwise, and one's voice and access should not be sacrificed to ownership, and unfortuneately is what some propose.  I personally felt at a lost and a little ungrounded without a dose of science and the humanities, enough to excite the curiosity and endure like an after-image beyond the competition for attention. Hopefully the message is resounding and we take the time to appreciate those tools and movements that are an integral part of learning and teaching.