Opponents of a pair of controversial Hollywood-backed copyright Bills won a temporary reprieve last week, when upcoming votes in the US Senate and House of Representatives were postponed.
However, the lobbyists and politicians backing the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) haven't given up.
"We must take action to stop" online piracy and counterfeiting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said late last week. Reid, who previously called PIPA an "extremely important" piece of legislation, said he believed that it could move forward "in the coming weeks".
Reid's comments came after last week's historic online protest — Wikipedia going dark for a day, alerts appearing on the home page of Google and Amazon — roiled Washington officialdom and obliterated long-held assumptions about whether it would be politically safe to advance a measure opposed by millions of internet users.
The danger for the anti-SOPA contingent is that over time, when last week's outcry recedes into memory, Hollywood and its allies will regroup around a new Bill with a different name, but only a slightly different approach. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) may have lost this round, but dozens of US senators are still publicly applauding the idea, and, if history is any indication, the MPAA is willing to wait.
"I expect this threat to resurface," said Jerry Moran of Kansas, the first Republican Senator to oppose PIPA.
Some of Hollywood's closest allies are promising that it will happen. PIPA "deserves to be considered", Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said. PIPA's author, Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said that he hopes "to send a Bill to the president's desk this year".
For its part, the MPAA sounded unapologetic and unrepentant. "As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves, [and] American jobs will continue to be lost," MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd said in a statement. Dodd initially dismissed the protests as "stunts".
The unrepentant tone was shared by a collection of groups, including the American Federation of Musicians, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. They said in a joint statement that critics of the legislation have offered an "onslaught of mistruths" to the public.
Texas Republican Lamar Smith, Hollywood's favourite House Republican and the author of SOPA, said that he would delay a vote on his legislation — but warned that it is only a delay. The House Judiciary Committee "remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation", said Smith, who counts Hollywood as thetop donor to his campaign committee.
Copyright Alliance executive director Sandra Aistars said that "the status quo is unacceptable".
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