Key US politicians withdraw support for SOPA and PIPA

By Tom Bramwell Published 19 January, 2012

Former PIPA co-sponsor warns against "unintended consequences" of proposed legislation.

A number of high-profile US politicians have withdrawn their support for the controversial SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy laws in the face of online protests.

Senators Marco Rubio (Florida) and Roy Blunt (Missouri), co-sponsors of PIPA, otherwise known as the Protect IP Act, both changed their stance yesterday.

"Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences," Rubio said in a statement.

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch no longer backs PIPA either. "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," he said in a statement.

Democrat Ben Cardin and the rest of the Republicans have also stopped supporting PIPA.

Over in the House of Representatives, Republicans Ben Quayle of Arizona, Dennis Ross of Florida and Lee Terry of Nebraska all withdrew their support for SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Despite all this, the House intends to resume work on SOPA next month, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid still intends to bring PIPA to the Senate floor next week.

SOPA and PIPA were conceived as a way for the likes of film, music and game companies to protect their content from online piracy.

However, opponents have argued that the bills are overbearing and draconian, with potentially devastating consequences should they go through.

For example, SOPA would allow courts to order ISPs and services like Google and Paypal to block access to websites without the sites in question being allowed to defend themselves.

Yesterday many websites chose to protest against all this by blacking out or altering their homepages to raise awareness.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 4 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Badassbab #1 4 months ago

    Thats good news but must keep up the pressure.

  • uninspiredcup #2 4 months ago

    I notice gametrailers (viacom) hasn't made a single sound about SOPA or PIPA.
    This just goes to show the kind of information you could expect from a highly controlled internets.

  • supermaniacs #3 4 months ago

    The arrogance for those behind Sopa and Pipa is extremely irritating! Why should the US control the internet, when they're the biggest bully of them all!!

  • CamberGreber #4 4 months ago

    To bad for SOPA and PIPA.

    I guess they will have to spend there time daydreaming of a NAZI controlled Internet.

  • sir_tripod #5 4 months ago

    Team America: Internet Police.

  • bad09 #6 4 months ago

    Well it's not dead so the battle isn't over yet.

    That governments are even listening to crying about piracy when a lot of these companies actually EARNED off filesharing and helped to create this problem in the first place is the biggest crime.

  • kassmageant #7 4 months ago

    ign Finally grow a backbone and said yesterday that it's against SOPA and PIPA. which is pretty commendable, taking into account their owner, news corp, is supporting them.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #8 4 months ago

    You have to admit though, PIPA has a fine arse.

  • DodgyPast #9 4 months ago

    People being able to communicate freely is truly abhorrent to these companies.

    They won't be happy until they have the power to shut down anything they don't like.

    Anyone else think that if this goes through protesting about any follow up legislation will be far harder. After all any site allowing any discussion regarding protests could be accused of facilitating piracy and shut down.

    Would also imagine any sites that discuss home brew, emulation and jail breaking will be driven underground very rapidly.

  • dr_zoidthrob #10 4 months ago

    Best description of the SOPA bill in the US that I've read:

    If you post a Michael Jackson song online, you could get five years in jail - one more than the man who killed him

  • misterdoctor #11 4 months ago

    That FerrisBeuller guy must be pretty happy eh?

  • arcam #12 4 months ago

    @misterdoctor Anyone who cares about the internet should be happy. But it's not over.

  • DrStrangelove #13 4 months ago

    @dr_zoidthrob

    I think it is a greater crime to post a MJ song than to kill him.

  • Porko_Rossi #14 4 months ago

    Good news, I hope Gary Mckinnon gets some press attention out of all this. Really annoys me that the US can extradite British citizens for hacking but the UK cannot extradite Americans.

  • misterdoctor #15 4 months ago

    @arcam Very true. This is but a stop-gap. Awareness has exponentially increased about these bills, and Senators are definitely worried about how their stance will impact their respective constituents' opinion of voting for them in the next round of elections.

    It has begun. Yesterday can be regarded as a victory for the opposition of the bill, but interest has to remain consistent and piqued while these bills are still in consideration.

  • Slipstream #16 4 months ago

    Why are the deluded always allowed to get so this far? Even if it's a loosing battle, this should have been dismissed without question.

  • anomagnus #17 4 months ago

    @supermaniacs

    I really think you've missed the point entirely. This isn't the US trying to control the internet (die hard 4, you can rest in peace).

    This is large corporations lobbying the men in power, telling them that the 'internetz is stealing their money', and trying to get a law in place that will not only cut down on piracy, but just cut down the internet all togeather.

    If you're going to complain about this, make sure your target is correct.

    Edit. I;m pretty right wing, and i don't really mind large corps. But seriously, SOPA is fucked up. This goes past the death of free speech. I mean, taken to its fullest extent, would a movie review now be considered a breach of SOPA? What would be left after SOPA? A news site?
    Edited by anomagnus at 19/01/12 @ 10:21

  • IAchilleasI #18 4 months ago

    SOPA and PIPA will not pass. They knew there would be outrage over this, not only from the public, but big business like Google and Facebook. Now those companies will start bribing, ahem, "lobbying" politicians. It's a win-win for them.

  • chrisjm #19 4 months ago

    even news sites owned by those wanting SOPA could fall fowl of SOPA, they do not always gain correct permissions to use the images or clips they show accompanying news.

  • arcam #20 4 months ago

    @anomagnus I'm pretty left wing and am not a fan of many large corps, but this is one issue where the left and right can agree. That's a rare occurence, and shows how stupid this legislation is.

  • RevanNL #21 4 months ago

    They're only backing out because they realise that this would cost them votes. But still it's progress

  • anomagnus #22 4 months ago

    @arcam

    Stupid is being kind:) One of the worst i have ever seen! I'm encouraged that resistenace to is is cross party in the states as well. I really don't see this ever making it.

  • FireMonkey #23 4 months ago

    I have just seen this:
    http://twitpic.com/88ueqz

    Basically the guy who wrote SOPA pinched someone's photo from Flikr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxherder/4189641199/) to use on his campaign website without permission or giving credit to the photographer. That breaks the creative commons agreements and so he is basically breaking his own proposed law.

  • ZouZouRas #24 4 months ago

    The funny thing is that #SOPA in Greek means stop talking and #PIPA means blowjob. Ah the sweet irony ;)