It was epic. While member sites broadcasted the news online, we blasted our “cat signal” into the sky with crowd-funded spotlights in cities around the world (on Batman's opening night!)

The Internet Defense League is a network of people and sites who use their massive combined reach to defend the open internet and make it better. Because it can sound the alarm quickly to millions of users, people are calling it “a bat-signal for the Internet”.

For the launch, two ideas seemed awesome: 1) Launch on the night the new Batman movie comes out (the midnight showings for hard-core fans) and 2) have launch parties in cities around the world with real-life bat cat signals.

So on Thursday night, as Hollywood’s latest superhero movie opens in theaters for a midnight showing, IDL members in select cities can celebrate the launch around powerful spotlights rented for the occasion. The spotlights will beam the IDL’s “cat-signal” into the stratosphere, across obliging clouds, or onto neighboring buildings.

Plus we've got a bunch of other cool items for league members who donate.

Parties like this are being planned in San Francisco, New York, Washington, DC, London and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (!) and a few more we haven't decided on yet. If you'd like to host an event in your city but don't have the funds, email us (include thoughts on the location, the kind of crowd you can draw, and other ideas). If you can self-fund an event in your city, don't bother donating, just email us.

Specifically, we're talking about renting either a standard spotlight, a super-bright digital projector for projecting the cat-signal logo on buildings, or ideally both. In San Francisco we're going all out and getting an enormous spotlight that needs a special truck to power it.

We are very happy to be sharing a launch date with Batman. Everyone who took part in defeating SOPA, PIPA & ACTA this year are legitimate real-life superheroes. Sure, the film's parent company probably has bats$%&# crazy plans for our internet (and yes, they gave a role in the movie to a pro-PIPA Senator). But Batman? He's awesome.

(And if the IDL really takes off, who knows? Maybe we'll get Hollywood out of the lobbying business and back to making movies.)

P.S. We are very excited about the launch, and proud to have your support!