SOPA And PIPA Bills: Lawmakers Shift Stance On Anti-Piracy Legislation

Joining other lawmakers, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced Wednesday that he would no longer support the Protect IP Act, amid widespread online protests against the legislation and its House counterpart, the Stop Online Piracy Act.

"After listening to the concerns on both sides of the debate over the PROTECT IP Act, it is simply not ready for prime time and both sides must continue working together to find a better path forward," said Hatch in a statement.

Hatch once co-sponsored the legislation. Now he wants to delay debate on the bill, scheduled for next week.

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also withdrew their support Wednesday. Rubio said in a statement, "Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences."

The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim and Zach Carter reported on the contents of the bill:

SOPA would give both the government and major corporations the power to shut down entire websites accused of copyright infringement with neither a trial nor a traditional court hearing. The legislation is aggressively backed by Hollywood movie studios and major record labels, along with several major news providers, including Fox News and NBC-Universal, which have largely shied away from coverage of the bill.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring the bill to the Senate floor early next week.

See what other lawmakers are saying about the controversial legislation:

Comments

[jsgaetano]

06:13 AM on 01/20/2012

Conservatives are terrified Reid might bring this to a vote, and actually FORCE them to go on record opposing it.

[Allosaur2010]

05:33 PM on 01/19/2012

Seems that Silicon Valley has more bribe money than Hollywood.

[authorized-user]

04:10 PM on 01/19/2012

Someone clued in these politicians that they would be the first to get locked out of the web.

[Desuka]

02:15 PM on 01/19/2012

never underestimate the power of a group of pissed off nerds.

[onewhothinks]

01:47 PM on 01/19/2012

I'm sure there are plenty of things I'd disagree with Mr. DeMint on, but this is definitely one thing me and my representative agree on.

[sabela]

12:51 PM on 01/19/2012

Wasn't Orin Hatch on of the co-sponsors of the bill that Rachel pointed out last night have illegal copywrited images on their website? Which I don't believe was intentional but proved that it is quite easy to unintentionally break copywrite protection laws.

[JohnBryansFontaine]

12:42 PM on 01/19/2012

Lawmakers withdraw support of anti-piracy bills after online protest

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html

[Thanks4Watching]

12:41 PM on 01/19/2012

What was bipartisan support for PIPA/SOPA is now bipartisan opposition to PIPA/SOPA.

It begs the question, did they even read the bill before the tidal wave of angry constituents?

[Thadd007]

11:14 AM on 01/19/2012

Last week, two other co-sponsors, Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), joined four other Senate Republicans in a letter to Reid also urging him delay the vote. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who was an initial co-sponsor of PIPA, reversed his position. The bill's supporters dismiss accusations of censorship, saying the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn't adequately prevent criminal behavior.
But SOPA critics say the bill's backers don't understand the Internet's architecture, and therefore don't appreciate the implications of the legislation they're considering.

Right-wing schemes ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS fail... Spectacula­rly. About the only thing the GOP has ever successful­ly created is a list of lame excuses.
http://seekingadventurequest.blogspot.com/

[todays2centsworth]

09:43 AM on 01/19/2012

Clearly there is not a leader among them. All followers.

[PathofTotality]

08:50 AM on 01/19/2012

I just looked on the fox website and the commentors there also agree (for the most part) SOPA and PIPA are bad things. For this breif moment in time, everyone is an Independent. I say Welcome to the fold.

[HymnsToSilence]

05:30 AM on 01/19/2012

This is not a surprise. Mr's Hatch, Rubio, Blunt, Brown, and others, including many Democrats are listening to the people. I wonder why they were not listening last January when the people were expecting them to help conditions for job growth.

"Selective Listening" v. 1. The process of hearing what one wants to here. 2. [Politics] Choosing what to hear based on the outlook of your next election. example - "The people have spoken and I hear them loud and clear"

[Rafael Perez]

12:50 AM on 01/19/2012

I was quite surprised to see the amount of bipartisanship when this bill was drafted. You had both, left, right, tea party and ultra left both supporting and going against SOPA and PIPA...

Its like... blehhhadhejkfhukfhgjsjkefh wtf? The day when you actually want bipartisanship for legislation where it benefits all Americans in every way, you get something completely opposite; bipartisanship with such harsh legislation that threatens internet freedom.

[PathofTotality]

08:45 AM on 01/19/2012

Exactly. You have to wonder what in these bills was so strong as to breach the divide. Sadly, it still shows that most politicians just really don't get it. They (at least a majority) don't understand the reality of things sometimes.

[onewhothinks]

01:49 PM on 01/19/2012

I think that bipartisan bill support, at least these days, usually seems to be a sign that one side of the argument is just following the lobbyists' money.

[mistergg69]

10:43 PM on 01/18/2012

OBAMA 2012

[Steelsil]

10:09 PM on 01/18/2012

The rats are deserting the sinking SOPA. Goooo, Wikipedia!

[Sloopydrew]

10:26 PM on 01/18/2012

Too bad the site we're currently posting on didn't have similar integrity and courage.

[jsarets]

10:30 PM on 01/18/2012

AOL came out against it. Not sure about the Time-Warner division...

[Desolati0n]

08:32 AM on 01/19/2012

At least they had a large black box on the home page all day and it linked people to an article about it :\

[barrada nicto]

01:01 AM on 01/19/2012

" The rats are deserting the sinking SOPA. "

Until next time ...