Wednesday’s blackout by several websites in protest of SOPA undoubtedly pushed the pending SOPA legislation against the ropes.  As the NY Times reported, this was a case of grassroots new media beating the old guard.

On January 17, only 31 members of the U.S. House of Representatives opposed the legislation, with 80 in support.  The day after the Jan.18 blackout, the 31-member opposition had surged to 122-strong (see ProPublica).  Even this microscopic blog’s activism elicited a surprising number of reactions here in France, including even from an assistant to a U.S. Congressman that happened to be on vacation in Paris.

But this is only round 1.  The $63m-funded army of lobbyists defending the well-financed old guard media are still in the ring.  David Binetti offers an insightful op-ed in TechCrunch explaining how the lobbyists will most likely take the fight to the most powerful influencers of the opposition directly, i.e. venture capitalists and thought leaders of digital media giants.  Round 2 will prove interesting.

My question is what should we do about this in Europe.  Europe was largely silent in round 1 (heaven knows we have other problems right now).  A typical government policy, like that of the UK, is to not intervene in the domestic legislative debates of another sovereign nation.  This is understandable.  But nefarious ill-conceived copyright legislation like SOPA would affect citizens of Europe as well.  What is the appropriate level of response?  I submit that it has to start with netizens of European digital media as well, a grass-roots effort just like in the U.S.

Hopefully, as Binetti suggests, this incident of SOPA opposition will come to represent an inflection point in the disruption of the entire political industry.  What if a successful political campaign relied not on how well-financed it is, but rather on mastery of social media to communicate a platform of integrity?  Now that would be something.