SOPA and PIPA Shelved, Internet Succeeds

By Landon Robinson | 20 January 2012 | 19 Comments

As of this morning, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid announced that further action on PIPA, The Protect Intellectual Property Act, will be postponed until an agreement has been reached. Following suit, Lamar Smith also announced that any further decision-making on his similarly crafted SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) would also be postponed to a later date.

In addition to authoring the SOPA legislation, Smith actively serves as republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. In a recent statement via their official website, Smith announced his reasoning for putting the bill off:

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy. It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

“The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

Similarly, Senator Reid mentioned in a recent tweet that “In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act #PIPA.”

While these two bills are certainly not dead, these events do indicate that the bills will need some very serious revising, possibly from the ground up. As you may have heard from the voices around the internet collective, the majority of web users are in full opposition of this legislation. Not only do they infringe upon the freedom of the internet, they infringe up on the free rights of its users and inflict harm on a number of jobs.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, was reportedly not happy with this turnout, based on a statement on his site:

“More time will pass with jobs lost and economies hurt by foreign criminals who are stealing American intellectual property, and selling it back to American consumers. The day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem.”

Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy.”

While the internet celebrates and passes around the celebratory champagne, I for one, am severely taken back by these words.

What is most disappointing about this legislation is not the actions it takes to accomplish a task that likely can’t be accomplished through judicial means; but the fact that older, less frequent internet users like Senator Leahy, seem to believe that they have the key to fixing it all, and it’s just not the case.

I’m no politician myself, but if there’s one thing I’m confident in my knowledge about, it’s the internet. Just like Senator Leahy, I’m in complete and total agreement that piracy is wrong, in poor taste, and should be done away with entirely.

What I, and most of the internet for that matter, disagree with, however, is the means in which SOPA and PIPA attempted to accomplish that goal.

Regardless, SOPA and PIPA have been successfully shelved, for now.

Will they be back? Likely.

Will they be similar? Probably.

Will the internet have to blackout again? Possibly.

To those that wrote to their Senators, Congressmen, and Representatives, the Internet thanks you. I thank you. Without the outcry of the internet, it’s likely that the proposed legislation would’ve made more progress. Thanks to the support of all the sites that blacked out in protest and the users who stood by them, we can live another free day, online and without constraint..

While not all will cry foul at the plague of online piracy, several will stand to keep the Internet the way it should always be: open, free, and accessible.

19 Comments

Posted by Steven Silva on 20 January 12 at 10:31am

Take that you SOB xD
Posted by maodk on 20 January 12 at 10:45am

don’t fuck wit the gamers sopa!
Posted by Flass on 20 January 12 at 10:47am

While SOPA and PIPA gets shelved another act ACTA comes instead. Learn more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=My4c82IxM94 (ACTA is the eu respons to SOPA, more or less)
- Posted by Person with stuff... on 20 January 12 at 1:34pm
  
  Well ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting trade agreement) Is international. Its a aggrement that EU, the us, the united nations (NZ,Australia etc.) South korea and all G8 countries have aggreded about. Its about every country in the world being able to volunteer for using ACTA (SOPA and PIPA fx. is another kind of the ”acta”). ACTA Gives every country who wants to ability to make a law about pirating and counterfeiting like the US and discuss them on a international basis.. :I And i think its BAD… :I
- Posted by M on 20 January 12 at 2:08pm
  
  That was decided upon before Christmas, they said No.
  
  http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9169378/EU_Parliament_rejects_secretive_ACTA_in_vote_for_openness.
- Posted by Imatablerumble8 on 21 January 12 at 9:13am
  
  Like i said we one this battle but like a boss battle like fight in samurai jack theirs always something worse over the horizon
Posted by Kyle on 20 January 12 at 10:59am

Thank god for hackers anonymous
Posted by burt on 20 January 12 at 11:17am

“Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property”

Btw, most of the world hates america. Just because he cant get his own way they bitch saying its not fair, your stealing are stuff
Posted by rabbit1131 on 20 January 12 at 11:22am

Let me say this, it’s not just killing the bad guys, it’s killing way more good guys. It’s like saying screw our troops that are in the battle, nuke em all. Good and bad.
Posted by Flag Captured on 20 January 12 at 11:25am

I’m actually really pleased with that result. Not only does it highlight how stupid it is, it shows that you shouldn’t mess with the people, and take away their freedom of speech when it could very easily be avoided.
The collateral damage would be huge, and even though I don’t support piracy, it’s not worth halting piracy if it shuts down a ton of major sites undeservingly.
Posted by Iris on 20 January 12 at 12:01pm

Fuck yeah my bitches keep screwing at them and we will win!!!!!!
Posted by Mugenite on 20 January 12 at 12:32pm

Woo! I can start using soap for showers and play as soap in MW again!!!
Posted by Bull3t on 20 January 12 at 12:47pm

YEAH! :D take that, soap!
Posted by sislord on 20 January 12 at 1:51pm

is not over yet but is something
Posted by CarneysRage on 20 January 12 at 6:47pm

What are they even talking about? What ips are all the foreigners stealing and selling? And don’t they realize that plenty of Americans steal American ips too? They seem like they’re just old kinda racist white dudes who don’t know what facebook is. I have honestly never heard of any site online that sells unofficial or pirated things like that. There are plenty of places that have things for free (piratebay, what used ot be megaupload, etc.), but nowhere that I can think of that fits the description given by these old douches.
Posted by fuck sopa poopa or whatever on 21 January 12 at 2:03am

fuck sopa
Posted by Imatablerumble8 on 21 January 12 at 9:12am

Well we won this time, but we lost Megaupload
Posted by Bull3t on 21 January 12 at 1:19pm

You fucked with the wrong guys, soaps.
Posted by Anonymous on 22 January 12 at 4:37pm

R.I.P Megaupload and it’s subsidaries
March 21st,2005-January 19th,2012