Yesterday was a busy day for political pundits watching the GOP presidential campaigns but as well as a firestorm of news about that topic, it was also reported that lawmakers in the Senate were jumping ship on their support for the Senate's version of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) called PIPA (Protect IP Act) and today we see, despite Harry Reid's prior vow to bring PIPA on to the floor of the Senate, the vote has been indefinitely postponed.The Politico:
"In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote on the PROTECT IP Act," Reid said in a statement.
But the Nevada Democrat said talks would continue between the warring sides — Hollywood and content providers are on one side and Silicon Valley and the tech community on the other.
"We made good progress through the discussions we've held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks," Reid said.
"There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved,” he added. “Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices.”
On Thursday signs emerged that PIPA was in trouble and the vote might be delayed. Reid on Thursday released Democrats from casting their lot with PIPA.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged Democrats to shelve the bill and put it aside for further study.
The decision comes amid fierce backlash against the bill in recent days. Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla and thousands of websites coordinated an online protest this week against PIPA and its sister bill in the House, the Stop Online Piracy Act.
After Internet users bombarded their representatives in Washington with calls and emails over the piracy bills, lawmakers started jumping ship from sponsoring PIPA and SOPA.
Far left liberals seemed surprised and agitated that the majority of lawmakers dropping support of SOPA/PIPA are Republicans and not Democrats, with some of the most liberal progressive sites, like Daily Kos, calling Democratic lawmakers "tone deaf" and "oblivious to political reality."
You have an entire wired generation focused on this issue like a laser, fighting like hell to protect their online freedoms, and it's FUCKING REPUBLICANS who are playing the heroes by dropping support?
Those goddam Democrats would rather keep collecting their Hollywood checks, than heed the will of millions of Americans who have lent their online voice in an unprecedented manner.
Are they really this stupid? Can they really be this idiotic?
Are they really going to cede this issue to Republicans, hand them this massive public victory, then get left with nothing but public scorn when SOPA and PIPA go down in flames?
Frankly, their level of shock and surprise is actually the surprising part of all this, when they are more than aware that the majority of Hollywood donations go to Democratic campaigns.
Reid made it clear the PIPA bill is not dead and they will continue to wheel and deal to try to get it passed in some form or another, but for now, the Internet protest where thousands upon thousand of websites went dark, accomplished the goal of forcing lawmakers to take another look at the bills and the very real consequences to freedom of the Internet they threatened.
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