Report: Wikipedia's Wales says MPAA's Dodd should be fired

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) should fire its chairman, former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), in a speech at the Design Life Digital conference in Munich, Germany, on Tuesday, VentureBeat reports.

Dodd and the MPAA have fought hard for tough anti-piracy legislation, but Wikipedia and other Web companies staged a protest last week that led lawmakers to pull the legislation.

Wikipedia blacked out its English language site and replaced it with a message warning the legislation would "fatally damage the free and open Internet."

Wales said 10 million people contact Congress because of the protests. 

“That’s not an abuse of power, that’s democracy,” he said, according to the report. “[Dodd] had best get used to it.”

A Wikipedia spokesman said Wales was not speaking on behalf of the nonprofit foundation.

The MPAA did not respond to a request to comment. 

Wales went on to say that he hopes Congress passes some form of anti-piracy legislation.

 “I hope to see … a window of opportunity for Hollywood to come to the table and talk to Silicon Valley with a little more humility,” Wales said. “The laws need to be tweaked … but we do not need a Draconian new regime.”