A Seattle street scene today

For the past few days, Seattle’s Zachary Cohn has been spending his days and nights planning for a January 18th rally to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act. But one thing got in the way: the weather.

An epic snowstorm, which arrived in the Seattle area early Wednesday morning and has already dumped several inches on city streets, has led to the cancellation of the protest.

“No sense crying over frozen precipitation,” joked Cohn in an email to GeekWire. “I’m definitely a bit bummed, but I’m just shifting focus and keeping up the pressure.”

Cohn promises that the rally, originally scheduled for South Lake Union, Westlake Park and Bellevue Square, will be back in February.

In the meantime, Cohn said that he’s urging protestors to call politicians to share their views on SOPA and the accompanying legislation known as the Protect IP Act. He’s also pushing the video “The Day the LOLcats died,” a parody of Don McLean’s classic song American Pie which features a cameo appearance by SOPA and PIPA critic Ben Huh of Cheezburger Network.


Seattle schools and about 30 Metro bus routes have been canceled in the city, and Mayor Mike McGinn just went on KUOW 94.9 FM to urge residents to stay off the roads.

In addition to Cheezburger, which joined Reddit and Wikipedia in blacking out its site today, other tech companies such as Amazon.com, Google and Microsoft have voiced their opposition to SOPA.

Here’s the flyer that Cohn planned to hand-out today at the Seattle rally.

SeattleAgainstSOPA-flyer

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