Opponents celebrate victory while looking to future battles
Nothing is ever dead-dead in the world of Washington politics (see candidacy of Gingrich, Newt) but it would appear for now at least that SOPA and PIPA, the twin terrors of House and Senate antipiracy legislation, have shuffled off this mortal coil.
(2012’s 25 Geekiest 25th Anniversaries)
The main sponsor of a House bill targeting online piracy announced Friday that he will postpone further action on the measure that has triggered fierce protests, blackouts from Internet sites and some rethinking among lawmakers.
The action by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) on the Stop Online Piracy Act came a couple of hours after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that he would delay a cloture vote on a similar Senate bill, the Protect IP (Intellectual Property) Act.
Once considered all-but-certain to become law, the full-scale retreats on these bills come after months of mounting protests and just two days after an orchestrated “blackout” of prominent websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit prompted a number of sponsors of the bills to drop their support.
Opponents of the bill, while pleased, are warning against future complacency. Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, says in a press release: “The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes these developments. This is another step towards the ultimate destruction of these two pieces of proposed legislation. But let’s be clear, these bills are not dead. They will return, and when they do, they must not harm the interests of the hundreds of millions of people who contribute to the free and open Internet.”
In the meantime, those who fought the good fight are entitled to celebrate their victory.
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