SOPA Halted in the House Fight over bills now turns to Senate

SOPA Halted in the House Fight over bills now turns to Senate

www.adweek.com

The controversial Stop Online Piracy Act has been stopped dead in its tracks in the House. Until there is broader consensus among the lawmakers about legislation that would crack down on foreign Web sites that infringe on U.S. copyright material and counterfeit goods, Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R.-Va.) has agreed SOPA would not come before the House for a vote.
The sharp turn in the debate followed news late Friday that Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would remove the domain name system blocking provision from the bill.

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Related News Links:
www.techdirt.com

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
How SOPA (as written) might kill ATS and free speech online (UPDATED)
Boycott SOPA: An Android app that terrifies publishers and politicians
SOPA - Worse Than You Think

Voices are being heard. Now it's PIPA's turn.

As a result of the deal struck with House leadership, Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has postponed Wednesday's hearing that would examine the impact of domain name service and search engine blocking on the Internet.
In his statement, Issa said that even though SOPA was halted, the fight wasn't over. "SOPA . . . is still a fundamentally flawed bill," Issa said.

"Earlier tonight, Chairman Smith announced that he will remove the DNS blocking provision from his legislation. Although SOPA, despite the removal of this provision, is still a fundamentally flawed bill, I have decided that postponing the scheduled hearing on DNS blocking with technical experts is the best course of action at this time. Right now, the focus of protecting the Internet needs to be on the Senate where Majority Leader Reid has announced his intention to try to move similar legislation in less than two weeks."

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Good news.

The Senate has been acting very authoritarian lately however so I expect they will vote in favor of this control-freak garbage.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Here's where we stand today...

Opponents of SOPA and PIPA have made some progress in the Senate. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he would work on a manager's amendment to PIPA that would address DNS blocking before the bill comes up for consideration on Jan. 24.

Following Leahy's announcement, six GOP leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee reached out to Majority Leader Harry Reid requesting that he delay PIPA's scheduled floor vote.

"We are all in agreement that the online distribution and sale of pirated content and counterfeit goods impose a huge cost on the American economy in terms of lost jobs, lost sales, lost innovation and lost income. We also believe, however, that we need to arrive at the right solution in the right way on this important issue," wrote GOP Senators Chuck Grassley, Iowa; Orin Hatch, Utah; Jeff Sessions, Ala.; John Cornyn, Texas; Mike Lee, Utah; and Tom Coburn, M.D., Okla.

If PIPA does come up for a vote, Wyden is prepared to filibuster it.

The Senate and the House need to acknowledge the steep learning curve they have in all things internet and not try and pass legislation this year - which they both still seem committed to doing. The work is far from over - but a victory is a victory.

Source

Also out today:

Obama Administration responds to We the People petitions on SOPA and online piracy

The White House has responded to two petitions about legislative approaches to combat online piracy. In their response, Victoria Espinel, Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget, Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and Howard Schmidt, Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff stress that the important task of protecting intellectual property online must not threaten an open and innovative internet.

Source

reply to post by muzzleflash


Actually, this is not good news. Good news would be that this these bills were shot down never to be heard from again.

What we have now is Congress laying low and regrouping for a new attack. The next assault will probably come during the next holiday. Enough will remain to keep Congress in session and vote while no one else is looking.

If that fails, it will be attached to a critical spending bill.

reply to post by N3k9Ni


I believe that forcing them to re-group and make another attempt is good news.

Stalling them is progress, although it's not a perfect ultimate win, I am happy with the fact that the massive outcry against this garbage is seeming to have some effect.

reply to post by muzzleflash


You're right. You have to take your victories where you can.

Believe me, this is only the beginning. These bastards won't give up and they won't stop until this is passed by hook or by crook. The only thing that might stop it is if we can stall it until after the election and take out the ones supporting this garbage.

Originally posted by N3k9Ni
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

Actually, this is not good news. Good news would be that this these bills were shot down never to be heard from again.

What we have now is Congress laying low and regrouping for a new attack. The next assault will probably come during the next holiday. Enough will remain to keep Congress in session and vote while no one else is looking.

If that fails, it will be attached to a critical spending bill.

I agree that this is their chosen course of action on this.
After all, it worked with the Federal Reserve bill, didn't it?

Are they trying to regroup for better wording here? Or did we finally make them stand up and take notice. Remember.....BOTH Houses of Congress have to pass a bill to make it a law and it can still be vetoed by the President. Hopefully at least the House is waking up some....

At least the White house response seems reasonable enough, though the devil will be in the detail. Enough to say they obviously have realised nothing is as simple as it looks. They already deal with rogue trading on the ground, and to be fair in the law, rogue traders in the ether should be dealt with also, otherwise there is a disparity. Carte blanche closing of Domains was unrealistic from a legal point of view, the courts would become bogged down in legal debate..

I was just reading about this as I stumbled to this site:

Victory for Internet Freedom

While I do feel that maybe someone in DC was listening, I still feel uneasy about the entire thing. I was speaking with my daughter over it and we both seemed to feel a little relief on this, but then started thinking. What about what was said a few posts back in this thread. Not that good at explaining our thoughts, but let me try. This is only what we thought, not what we know or think will happen.

So they shelve SOPA. Reddit was going to do a protest (informational to all its visitors and regulars). Others may have followed suit to show the people what is going on in Congress. So the bill gets shelved now. All these people that could have been made aware (if they cared) will now have no warning or information that this is happening. Kinda like Congress cooling everything down. Then something distracting comes up and happens, where the topic is all over the news. Congress talks about it all day, the news agencies talk about it all day. Then BAM, the bill gets passed along with some other bills.

Then after the dust settles, we have the bills pass and are now law. Sites go into a reactionary mode, but it may be too late.

In the end, I thinks the sites should still do as originally planned for protest, making the visitors aware of what Congress was *going* to do. Put up information about the bills but in a way of "You might want to think about who you vote for when it comes time, as these people seem to want to take your freedoms".

Just my two cents and thoughts.

IWOH