Controversial SOPA piracy bill shelved in the US

By Fred Dutton Published 20 January, 2012

It won't be reconsidered until a compromise is reached.

The highly controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has been shelved in the US.

As reported by the BBC, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith announced this morning that his panel would not consider the bill until a compromise is reached.

"I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," said Smith, a Texas Republican.

"It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products."

The Protect IP Act (PIPA) has also been put on hold.

The news follows widespread online protests earlier this week that saw a number of major sites, including Wikipedia, go dark for 24 hours.

Both bills were conceived as means by which entertainment providers could protect their content from online piracy. However, opponents argued that the bills were draconian, and came with potentially devastating ramifications on freedom of information.

If it had become law 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.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (44) Latest comment 4 months ago

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

  • Donaldthescotishtwin #1 4 months ago

    All I can say is a big huge PHEW, For now. until a second attempt happens,and if does just fight harder.

  • chiz #2 4 months ago

    = Put on the back-burner till the public forgets.

  • DyingAtheist #3 4 months ago

    @chiz Curses! You beat me to it.

  • bad09 #4 4 months ago

    "the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products."

    Oh do get over yourselves.

  • Amistat #5 4 months ago

    Glad to hear this has gone. Let's just hope it stays gone.

    Hmm, that comment was kinda dull, better add a meme...

    I used to be a SOPA, until I took an arrow to the knee...

    Phew, saved it.

  • LazyDan #6 4 months ago

    The principles of SOPA and PIPA aren't going away. The internet's now too wide reaching and too fast for governments like ours and the US' to not be able to censor it when they need to. In the last two years we've seen mass revolutions organised via social networking, and Wikileaks holding governments almost to ransom. Further to that, technologies like BitTorrent and fibre-optic based broadband make piracy so available and user friendly it almost feels legal.

    Piracy and freedom of information are two great problems for governments when uncontrollable, and they're going to be addressed in some shape or form eventually. For freedom of information's sake, hopefully technology will outpace whatever censorship the government can come up with.

  • Farzlepot #7 4 months ago

    SOPA is just a rehash of similar shelved bills from previous attempts. There will be repeated attempts until it does eventually get through. It's inevitable.

    Enjoy the 'net while it lasts folks, all that's happened here is that we've bought a couple of extra years.

  • valli #8 4 months ago

    This link is a must:
    "protecting US inventions from foreign thieves"

  • DurzoBlint #9 4 months ago

    They'll probably just wait for a more opportune time.

  • PixelEdged #10 4 months ago

    23/12/2012 SOPA will return and win just as the Mayans predicted

  • supermaniacs #11 4 months ago

    "Foreign thieves that steals and sells American products" !! What a massive douchebag!!!!

    Long live the free internet!!

    @bad09, you beat me to it
    Edited by supermaniacs at 20/01/12 @ 20:37

  • Cobalt_Jackal #12 4 months ago

    For now we have won the battle (with sadly one major loss, megaupload :(etc ), but we have not yet won the war. The fight shall continue until the war is one. No doubt many more will be casualties in this hard, long struggle against the forces of goverment fascism & corporatocracy... but let it be known that we will never surrender, we will never give up. No matter how long it takes, no matter what they do, they will never extinguish the bright light of hope, of tenacity, of freedom that resides in all of us.

    You know the internet was given to the world for free, and damnit, its gonna stay that way.
    Edited by Cobalt_Jackal at 20/01/12 @ 20:10

  • DirectAim #13 4 months ago

    Majority of these thieves actually come from America, damn Texans, stick to your guns and KKK

  • Chelladox #14 4 months ago

    It's not really shelved, actually. That's what they'd like you to believe. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/old7e/sopa_is_back_it_has_not_been_shelved_and_its/c3i9fqe

  • bad09 #15 4 months ago

    @supermaniacs

    I know god forbid file sharing actually advertises amercian products and sells them. I'm not the biggest baby eating pirate (music is DRM free now I don't believe in it and games - outside of freeing yourself from DRM or old stuff you own or can't pay for - I see no reason to now they cottoned on cheap downloads are awesome) but I'll proudly admit many of my DVD collections of american "inventions and products" are the result of that "evil" if I miss it first time on my sky or paid for license fee or commercial TV in the UK..all pay my money to american owned "invention and product"....even watching on my computer which features components or brands that are american "inventions and products".

    *sigh*

  • motim #16 4 months ago

    To us Europeans things might be a little worse than SOPA and PIPA to the AMericans. http://youtu.be/citzRjwk-sQ Watch this and cringe. #StopACTA now! sorry for this post, but i'm furious as to how these sons of bitches want to make our life even more of a living hell.

  • Nico4 #17 4 months ago

    Great! Now we'll just have to wait for them to try again.

  • inutaihanyou #18 4 months ago

    Remember; congress is by the balls of the corps. They won't stop pushing for what they want.

    If only Bernie Sanders was running as President this year

  • RedRain #19 4 months ago

    Gov can kiss my arse

    People should not be afiad of there goverment. The goverment should be afiad if its people

  • Lunatic4ever #20 4 months ago

    Mission accomplished, for now at least.

  • levitate #21 4 months ago

    @PixelEdged: It's actually the 21st.

  • Casserole #22 4 months ago

    @bad09 Blaming them foreign people always works!

  • Collymilad #23 4 months ago

    Good.

    Fuck them. I understand piracy is a bad thing, but this has fuck all to do with piracy.

  • MerricK #24 4 months ago

    That's the problem when corporations attempt to make the law and not governents.

    I hate the film industry for how backdated they are and not embracing the current modern day technologies

    They have noone to blame but themselves and they way they go after the pirates of the internet doesn't make you want to stick up for them one bit.

  • gandhimaster #25 4 months ago

    May i play devil's advocate here? Just say SOPA returns but the legislation only allowed for the US to order blocks on websites like piratebay/newzbin. Would this still be opposed? After all, those sites have no legal reason to exist.

    I'm against SOPA because it doesn't seperate legal sites that have user uploads (youtube/facebook) from blatant illegal sites that only distribute copyrighted material like TPB etc.

    How can it be defined in law to seperate the two? If it could, would there still be such opposition?

  • -cerberus- #26 4 months ago

    What about the Canadian C-11 bill (= SOPA)?

  • Neil__ #27 4 months ago

    @gandhimaster
    "Just say SOPA returns but the legislation only allowed for the US to order blocks on websites like piratebay/newzbin. Would this still be opposed? After all, those sites have no legal reason to exist."

    It takes a special kind of stupid not to be able to see any legitimate uses for torrents and newsgroups.

  • gandhimaster #28 4 months ago

    @Neil__ thank you for your support. Perhaps you could insult me in other ways too? Why not just stick to the point and say what those reasons are? It's those sites i mentioned that are causing the music and movie industry to try and force through the legislation.

  • gandhimaster #29 4 months ago

    @Neil__ I know it will hit legit sites that host uploaded media, but SOPA wouldnt be used to shut down Youtube even if it could. The target is sites hosted overseas like the ones i mentioned. Existing laws have already been used to shut down megaupload so they don't need new laws for Youtube etc.

  • Badassbab #30 4 months ago

    Didnt they just close down Mega Upload without Sopa? Surely there are existing laws in place that allow Sopa proponents to act against piracy anyway. P.S Hollywood please improve the quality of your films, you don't offer to refund my cinema ticket fee so piracy does tempt me.

  • urban #31 4 months ago

    hooray!

  • AgentCool #32 4 months ago

    @Badassbab If some people aren't prepared to pay to watch them - and, let's face facts, these pirate idiots wouldn't pay if they were £1 each - why would they bother investing in risky ventures? The abundance of piracy is one of the reasons movie studios churn out endless sequels. It might be uninventive, but they're practically guaranteed to get their money back.

  • Laythe_AD #33 4 months ago

    Wasn't Mega Upload able to be shut down because of charges of money laundering, however? Anyways, piracy is a problem. These bills were utterly destructive and draconian in their reach, however.

  • roughsleeper #34 4 months ago

    My balls just dropped....again - at the age of 41!
    I hate what this and PIPA could have done to bring the U.S closer to the 'China Syndrome' of selective information. I love my webbyweb as it is!

  • roughsleeper #35 4 months ago

    @gandhimaster asks: How can it be defined in law to seperate the two? If it could, would there still be such opposition?

    Thats the problem. The bill doesnt distinguish at all. It states that ANYONE uploading ANYTHING containing © material in any form can be charged. So some off the rails mother uploading a video of her cute yet fat kid dancing to 'I Like Big Butts' would be hilarious, but would also allow her to be prosecuted and even extradited under certain circumstances.

    A woman I'm aware of was charged around £7000 for not knowing that KaZaa was different to Itunes, and just thought it was a free service as she saw some bullshit ad online and paid some rippoff dollars for it. I can't remember the song, but it was a new british band no one knew of that were linked to the X-Shithead Factor tosh that gets spewed out every year. Next thing, she'd been contacted by a UK Law office directly for uploading the song to over 500 other people. She ended up fighting it but eventually paid nearly £15,000 as the UK Music company brought the big guns out.

    Its this kind of thing that pisses me off. Prosecute the guy with 30Gig of porn he hasnt paid for, or the 3TByte collection of BluRay films that lazy dope smoking prat has stored away. At least the fine is then easily defined as proportional to the crime.

    Everyone knows that the digital medium is the worst thing for any industry that profits by swappable data, and defining laws for such things will only allow the lawyers and prosecuting big wigs to win. NO ONE can really prove that downloading any © file was not intentional. The law must take into consideration the fact that every person on the planet who has a computer has infringed the Law whether they know it or not and set an appropriate law based on this fact.

  • Ardnew #36 4 months ago

    SOPAking Retodded

  • whatfruit #37 4 months ago

    in 2013 they will have another go at this but this being an election year no one wants to rock the boat and risk losing voters.

  • gandhimaster #38 4 months ago

    @roughsleeper Exactly, it's too much of a broad definition. But, could there be a way to seperate the two? I'm guessing the music/movie guys would rather it be as aggressive as possible, but i think if a compromise could be made then we could all relax a bit more. The leglisation must be able to allow Google/Facebook to take down a video upon request but also enable a site like TPB to be immediately blocked. The guy that said about torrents being ok in certain situations is right, but it's obvious what the difference is between legal and illegal sites. I just wish there could be a compromise.

  • roughsleeper #39 4 months ago

    @gandhimaster
    I agree completely that the obvious culprits and sites get away with it, and that legislation should specifically only involve such sites, but these acts and bills and changes to law get pushed through financial lobbying by the fat cats who want more and more. They are the owners of the bosses of the companies that sell the goods. They will get richer and stamp their feet until they get their way. They are the people who make sure that unless you are signed, and pay your fees that as a musician you will never be seen or heard outside of a crappy pub on a Sunday night. Join our club and the club will let you play. It's disgusting.

    Independant Digital Distribution is the only way to go IMO. It's all part of the same problem - how to make more money ? By selling the same old crap over and over. Inspiration has become a gradient on a chart.

  • HeNiCiDe1988 #40 4 months ago

    Yeah SOPA isnt dead and buried, politicians hate the lack of control of the internet and hate also not understanding it and are scared of it. So SOPA is only first loud shot from the haters of the cyberplains which they intend to rule one day. Think a few years from now if another one came along it may probably go through, SOPA is always on the horizon.

    But this bill probably would of gone through if they had excluded blogs and social networks ,they way it was set up was if you posted a link on facebook or in a social network site of an youtube video of a music/song that wasnt their offical channel (ie. the company hadnt given the account whom uploaded the video permission) youtube would be shut down til it was removed, followed by the social network site that hosted it or blog and then whomever uploaded it could face prison time or if it was two different people (the second was the one whom uploaded it onto the social network) the two of them could of gone to jail.

    Plus there was a trio of top pushers, one being an ex senator whom said he wouldnt lobby when he retired had already stated that their goal was correct because it works well in china.
    Edited by HeNiCiDe1988 at 22/01/12 @ 15:48

  • webcider #41 4 months ago

    We might have shelved SOPA which is a small victory i guess, but ACTA is far more real and dangerous for the Europeans than SOPA ever tried to be.

  • shikz #42 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 10:15:41 23-01-2012

  • shikz #43 4 months ago

    LMFAO,,, GUESS THEY GAVE INTO THE HACKERS .... HAHAHAHAHAHAH JEZUS LOL

  • man.the.king #44 4 months ago

    Did my small part by signing the online petition and forwarding to as many folks as possible on my Facebook list.

    As chiz indicates, I hope they don't try to rush it through at some other point in time when the public is not paying attention.