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Vote on US legislation to combat online piracy postponed

Saturday, January 21st 2012 - 05:51 UTC
Full article 2 comments
A massive protest and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia changed souls in US Congress  A massive protest and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia changed souls in US Congress

Yielding to strong opposition from the high tech community, United States Senate and House leaders said Friday they will put off further action on legislation to combat online piracy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday “in light of recent events.” Those events included a petition drive by Google that attracted more than 7 million participants and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, quickly followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

The Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) have strong support from the entertainment industry and other businesses that lose billions of dollars annually to intellectual property theft and online sales of counterfeit products. But they also have strong opposition from Internet-related companies that argue the bill would lead to over-regulation and censorship of the Internet.

Reid has also seen at least a half-dozen senators who sponsored the bill announce they now oppose it.

Reid said counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars every year and “there is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved.” He said he was optimistic about reaching a compromise in the coming weeks.

The main Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he respected Reid's decision to postpone the vote but lamented the Senate's unwillingness to debate the bill.

“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,” he said. Criminals in China, Russia and other countries “who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided” it was not worth debating the bill.

The two bills would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. They would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies from doing business with an alleged violator. They also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.
 

Categories: Politics, International.

Top Comments

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  • ChrisR

    Looks like somebody came to his senses at the last minute.

    Jan 21st, 2012 - 05:18 pm 0
  • zethe

    Anti-piracy is by far the most annoying part of buying any computer game. As a paying customer if i buy a PC game i am now forced to go through all sorts of jumps and hurdles and be required to be constantly online. If my internet connection goes down, i can no longer play most games.

    If i was to illegally download the same computer game, i would not have this problem. Punishing paying customers isn't a good way to stop them from taking the easier, cheaper option.

    Jan 21st, 2012 - 07:38 pm 0
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