If you were on the Internet Wednesday (and you must have been, if you're reading this), chances are good you got caught in the crossfire of a debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), two bills facing the U.S. House and Senate, respectively, with the aim of protecting copyrights online. While that doesn't on its face sound like a contentious issue, the broad language of the bills has some critics worried that they amount to censorship and infringement on free speech.

In response to the concern, sites like Wikipedia -- the 6th most-trafficked website in the world, according to Internet traffic ranker Alexa -- blacked out their content to spread awareness of the legislation, rendering their sites useless for a day. Google placed a black bar over its logo, and linked their landing page to a petition opposing SOPA and PIPA.

The public response to such measures was strong, with heavy traffic to U.S. senators' homepages temporarily crashing many of those sites and forcing a redirect to the Senate.gov homepage. Included in that collateral damage were Alaska Sens. Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski, both of whom saw their websites become temporarily unavailable in the crush of traffic.

Julie Hasquet, spokeswoman for Sen. Begich, confirmed that heavy traffic had downed the senator's site. Additionally, she said that the office had been fielding calls from constituents about the legislation for several days. She said that feedback sent to the senator via the Internet was redirected to Washington, D.C., so she couldn't speak to the volume of mail coming in that way.

Matthew Felling, a spokesman for Sen. Murkowski, also confirmed that her website had temporarily gone down, causing the redirect.

SOPA and PIPA are two separate bills with similar intents: each one aims to hinder copyright infringement by allowing copyright holders to prevent offending websites -- often foreign websites, operated outside of the U.S. -- from being accessed by visitors.

At various stages of the legislation, the law has gone so far as to allow copyright holders to demand (via court order) that a website infringing on its intellectual property rights be removed from Google's search results, that automated advertising systems remove ads (and thus, revenue) from offending websites, and even that the Internet Service Provider for an offender block traffic. It's a complicated issue, but PC World has a great rundown of the proposed legislation as of Wednesday.

Most opponents of the legislation, while acknowledging the need to protect intellectual property, say that the language in the bills is too broad, and that any site that hosts even one infringing image, video, or music clip could be taken offline. The current standard for copyright infringement was set by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires copyright holders to inform the offending website of the infringing material and allow the website to remove it.

The public backlash has caused some lawmakers to reconsider their stance on the legislation. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., on Wednesday withdrew his co-sponsorship of PIPA, saying "...the Protect IP Act is flawed as it stands today, and I cannot support it moving forward."

Tea party darling Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., similarly changed his stance after previously supporting PIPA.

Closer to home, both Sens. Murkowski and Begich said that they opposed PIPA in its current form.

“PIPA was envisioned as a way to fight intellectual property theft online, but the bill raises serious concerns about our civil liberties," Murkowski said in a brief statement. "That’s why next week I plan to oppose the current PIPA bill.”

Begich had a bit more to say on his opposition to PIPA:

“While we need to protect American-made products and intellectual property from being stolen by on-line thieves and pirates, we have to protect a free and open Internet.

“The theft of intellectual property and copyrighted material is a serious problem and we need to find solutions that strike an online balance between creativity, property protection and Internet freedom.

“I know there are efforts underway to re-write this legislation with a more balanced approach. I look forward to seeing what the bill looks like when it finally gets to the Senate. But the current version is unacceptable."

Don Young, Alaska's sole representative in the House, declined to support or oppose SOPA -- the House's version of the copyright infringement legislation -- in its current form, saying further evaluation of the resolution's language was needed. But Young spokesman Luke Miller said that Young's office has been fielding calls from constituents on the issue.

"Our offices, both in Alaska and here in Washington have been hearing from constituents on SOPA and we have not received a single call in support of the current bill," Miller said. "With that being said, the House Judiciary Committee has postponed the markup of SOPA in order to take into account the overwhelming public opposition to the bill."

"It would be premature for Congressman Young to commit one way or the other without seeing the new language," Miller continued. "However, the Congressman is listening to each and every Alaskan who has called, faxed, and emailed. If anything, this really is democracy at work in the digital age."

The SOPA and PIPA bills are being presented as a clash of two lobbying titans, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and asks how well the two can coexist as they move into the future. Given the way Internet behemoths on Wednesday flexed their muscle -- prompting fierce public lobbying and sending many lawmakers scurrying to change their positions -- it should be an interesting future indeed.

Contact Ben Anderson at ben(at)alaskadispatch.com