SOPA Goes Back To the Drawing Board, PIPA Postponed 267
New submitter rivin2e writes "SOPA has been sent back to the drawing board. 'The move came shortly after the Senate postponed a key vote on the companion PIPA bill scheduled for next week and amid calls for consensus before Congress moves forward on any legislation to address the problem of foreign piracy websites,' as written by the Los Angeles Times today. Hopefully the next draft of this bill will create a better foundation to stop piracy and not just assert control over the internet."
Support for the bill eroded on Wednesday as several of its co-sponsors withdrew their support. The issue is not over, however; statements were issued by both Senator Patrick Leahy and Rep. Lamar Smith indicating that they still want to find solutions to online piracy, and Smith also wrote an editorial piece for CNN to explain why he thinks such legislation is necessary. The SOPA issue was raised at the recent GOP debate, and all four candidates spoke against it.
Re:Maybe the problem isn't piracy, Congressman Smi (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe the problem is having a business model that is incompatible with sharing of information.
From the inception of the information revolution, information became easy to copy. It will be that way until you take away all computers and networks.
The real question - is there something we can do to reduce the damages these powerful industries do, while kicking and screaming on their way to irrelevance?
I'm sorry, if you want Congressman Smith to listen to you please insert $100k to his campaign every other year like the entertainment industry does: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2008&type=C&cid=N00001811&newMem=N&recs=20 [opensecrets.org]
Re:Likely answer... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Santorum (Score:4, Informative)
was not entirely dismissing the idea or thats' what I felt.
Santorum [urbandictionary.com] was just mouthing his usual santorum [spreadingsantorum.com].
Re:What we really need is... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not about the US government trying to police the world. It's about corporations (from any nation or region) trying to use legislation to preserve their businesses, to squash threats, and provide them more and more profitmaking opportunities, be those opportunities the result of monopolies, oligopolies, patents, or copyrights.
And it's about the relative ease of suppressing content on the Internet. Just get the government to agree with you, and it's moving a few bits around. Done.
And we need to break the connection between our Legislature and corporations. the connection is money and insider trading. And it's currently legal.
This must change.
Re:We don't need legislation (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps SOPA needs to apply to credit card companies instead of web sites.
It does. Read section 103 [loc.gov].
Pertinent part:
Denying U.S. Financial Support of Sites Dedicated to Theft of U.S. Property-
(1) PAYMENT NETWORK PROVIDERS- Except in the case of an effective counter notification pursuant to paragraph (5), a payment network provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after delivery of a notification under paragraph (4), that are designed to prevent, prohibit, or suspend its service from completing payment transactions involving customers located within the United States and the Internet site, or portion thereof, that is specified in the notification