House won't vote on SOPA until 'consensus' reached

by JC Fletcher on Jan 14th 2012 3:00PM

It's not quite victory, but at least our defeat has been postponed. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, has announced that the Stop Online Piracy Act bill won't be voted on yet. Issa had originally scheduled a hearing for January 18, The Hill reports, but canceled it following Rep. Lamar Smith's decision to drop the DNS-blocking provision.

"While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act," Issa said, "I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House. Majority Leader [Eric] Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote."

As for that Senate action, Sen. Patrick Leahy has announced that the ISP blocking component of the Senate's PIPA act will be removed through a managers' amendment, so that the other parts of the bill can be pushed through while that is studied in further detail.

[Thanks, Eric; image: Infographic from AmericanCensorship.org]

Via: NeoGAF
Source: The Hill

Tags: congress, darrell-issa, pipa, piracy, sopa

Reader Comments (67)

Well, one good thing, the house NEVER comes to a consensus...

@(Unverified)

http://madeinhead.org/anism/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/booyah.jpg

@SamE I'm so glad Joystiq doesn't allow embedding images. Such a lazy way to not give an opinion and a desperate attempt to get blue'd.

is this a win or a loss, cuz it still sounds like it is going to happen.

@Roxas560

It's not a win until SOPA gets buried.

@Faceless Troll Buried isn't enough, it needs to be burned alive, have the ashes buried on Mars, send Mars through the portal from Doom into Hell, and then nuke it while it's there.

@Jetleo1
Hey! Don't send it to Doom! That's a good game!

@Jetleo1 Don't you mean:

"Buried isn't enough, it needs to be burned alive, have the ashes buried on (CENSORED), send (CENSORED) through the portal from (CENSORED!!!) into (CENSORED), and then nuke it while it's there. "

@Roxas560 - It's a win of the battle but the war continues. The SOPA supporters are going to regroup and make changes and try to get it (or a new, similar bill) pushed though again at a later date.

"In an unusually blunt statement, Obama administration officials signaled that the White House would not support parts of two bills wending their way through Congress -- the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that critics say would limit freedom of speech on the Internet and unfairly punish legitimate websites."

EH!?

@(Unverified) If the indefinite detention fiasco was anything to go by that probably means he'll wind up signing it anyway.

@Faceless Troll After that defense act, I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back with nothing changed and he signs it saying he wishes he didn't have to or something stupid.

I thought that the NDAA was required to get the military their yearly budget? As in... if he didn't sign it, the army would have had no money this year. What do you expect him to do? Most he could do was pledge not to enforce the bad part of the bill, which he did.

they will pass this but not Net Neutrality?

@Tradio
SOPA and Net Neutrality are both designed to look like they stop "evil" things, but the true reason for these are control. Plain and simple.

@doodles
What? Net Neutrality is like, the exact opposite of what SOPA wants to do. Net Neutrality means that there should be NO restrictions put on the internet, be it from internet providers, governments, big business, etc.

Net Neutrality isn't about control at all, its the exact opposite of that.

@libregkd No, actually it is control. It's the Internet version of rent control - people who provide nothing telling those who provide something how to do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dJolYw8tnk

@Ryuk Way to add to the discussion.

And molotovzav, just because YOU have access to cheap high-speed bandwidth doesn't mean EVERYONE does. Everyone's pleased as punch with digital downloads until they realize it's an even easier way for these companies to exert control over your purchases. Or until their HDD crashes.

There's no possible way that the house and congress could have any lower of an approval rating.

Then they come up with THIS.

Well played.

@HighFiveJesus To be fair, I doubt the general population even knows what SOPA is or how dangerous it is. I think they might be a little pre-occupied with things like unemployment and medicare.

Hey, Joystiq, just out of interest,
since you (and your parent company) opposes SOPA, are you joining in with the Jan 18th virtual protest?

@Halgrimur - I hope they do.

Fightforthefuture.org is asking people to petition sites for January 18, when sites like Mozilla and Reddit are going dark as a protest against SOPA and PIPA. People are petitioning for Google, Facebook, and other huge ones. Maybe Joystiq should join in.

@Teeree
No, not just Joystiq. Joystiq is too small.

It must be AOL.

@Teeree Forget all other companies. If only Facebook and Google participated, you'd better believe EVERYONE will take notice.

@Teeree
Nah google doesn't need to shut down for a day, what they need to do is have every search no matter what you type return the same few results anti sopa petitions, contact us pages for congressmen ect.

@Blay Heh yea thatd be good -- or maybe like everything returns a blocked/access denied page with an explanation on why thats what the future might hold.

Consensus - the process by which government officials come to an agreement on how to screw everyone over.

@LaughingTarget
I really like what Legion said about about consensus- something about how the geth actually build it and humans impose it on others.

Does anyone think this will actually pass?

@thecoon
I mean have you taken a look t the givernment and th people in it....

I'm still not sure what gives american's the right to institute a law that affects the whole world. And if you think of it really, these companies always complain that they are losing millions, but all north americans consume to the fullest (and beyond with credit cards), so what are they really losing? It's not like people will magically have more money to buy absolutely everything legally once they can no longer pirate. If I pirate a Warner records CD because I can't afford it after buying a Warner movie, the only person losing is no one because I wouldn't have had the money for the cd anyway. So they argue that I'm simply not allowed to have the cd. But didn't they price gouge on their media in the first place? $40 for a new release blu-ray is hardly fair. Re-releasing a movie I just purchased as a directors cut with content I thought it included the 1st time around is hardly fair. SO where's our "Protect Consumers from Corporate Greed Act" to balance out whatever they limit with SOPA?

@(Unverified)

You don't get to have whatever you want if you can't afford it, regardless of your justifications. If you only have money for a CD or a movie, you choose one and skip the other. Welcome to being an adult.

@(Unverified)

Wait.
Expecting a return on your investment is considered greedy, because the person expecting the return has a lot of money to begin with.
Yet taking a luxury item you can't afford without paying a cent is totally OK, because the person taking the crap they don't really need can't afford this crap?

@(Unverified) While I may not agree with how some big businesses are run, you have to think about the consequences of putting limitations on them. You start telling privately owned businesses (big or small) how they should be run, and trust the GOVERNMENT to do this, then those businesses start exporting jobs to China, India, etc., and America would fall apart even more.

Big business is not inherently evil, they keep our economy afloat.

/pointless rant

@JakeAuditore Well said.

Republican Darrell Issa is my district's congressman and it's nice to see he's leading the charge against SOPA.

Bills in America have to pass through both Houses, right? So if SOPA fails in the House of Reps, then there's no way PIPA would either.

@Esposch Right. But PIPA is being filibustered by (awesome) Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, so the Senate won't even have a chance to bring up the bill for a vote.

"As for that Senate action, Sen. Patrick Leahy has announced that the ISP blocking component of the Senate's PIPA act will be removed through a managers' amendment"

Isn't that what everyone was worried about though?

This has made me consider voting republican in my state now, like the rest of the Nevadans. But I can't let Harry Reid and a bunch of old people who understand little to nothing about the internet pass crap like this. They probably think trolls are truthful and go out and arrest internet trolls. Oh well once the cost of how much this will take to completely carry out, hopefully supporters will drop. The government doesn't have the time or money to do this, unless they hire a private company, and that private company, thats too crazy, I don't see that happening. And I guess who cares about trolls, they're stupid and say crazy things, Idk, i come from a libertarian state you ask any of us, "how much control should the government have of your personal life 1 being the lowest", and we say 0 everytime. I feel liberties could be sucked out overtime, maybe not right away but over time slow erosion of internet rights, it won't be extreme, but we'll miss the old days for sure.

@molotovzav "This has made me consider voting republican in my state now"

Hilarious.

@molotovzav SOPA isn't any one party's issue. It has bipartisan support. Democrat (Leahy) is spearheading PIPA in the Senate, while a Republican (Smith) is doing SOPA in the House.

Don't be fooled into thinking voting for either party is going to get their platform represented. If either party stood for their values (civil liberties for the Dems, small government for the GOP), SOPA wouldn't even be on the table.

They're still protecting media no one wants anyway, this is really being pushed by Music and Movies , why because they think they should still be able to cell dvds, blu rays, and cds in a digital time, they're stupid and refuse to believe they'd make more money completely digital anyway. Oh well, I can wait for every movie I want to see to just come out on hbo, and I don't even listen to new music anymore, (you get to that age right). They think if they block ways for me to get those things for free I'll shell out money for their bogus physical medium, no thanks they'll learn.

@molotovzav Misguiding logic like yours is why we have bills like this making their way through the system.

@SmarmyJerkface Obsolete technology deserves to die, disruption happens, if people can't adapt they'll fail and good riddance!

I just gotta say I'm soo glad Joystiq is keeping tabs on this. Man, I'd miss all these little yet powerful details.

And if I may:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gcA0ZuKGkI8/SxSfyNra7AI/AAAAAAAAFAs/shcC5FvyRdw/s640/government%2Bdemotivator.jpg

As I expected, the bill is being taken down by restrictive procedures and a slow-moving Congress, not by petitions and protests.

Remember folks: bills aren't killed. They just linger and die in subcommittee forever.

I just wonder who will pay for all of this? There's hardly enough money for HEALTH and we're dumping billions to "protect" CDs & Movies?
What a sad country.

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House won't vote on SOPA until 'consensus' reached

Reader Comments (67)

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:02PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:13PM SamE said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:53PM Code Supreme commenter said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:07PM Roxas560 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:13PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:00PM Jetleo1 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:03PM pluupy said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:56PM Code Supreme commenter said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 9:17PM Mcmax3000 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:13PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:07PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:49PM hami83 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:24PM bm111 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:18PM Tradio said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:29PM doodles said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 7:05PM libregkd said

Posted: Jan 15th 2012 4:02AM maxwell97 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:21PM Ryuk said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 6:01PM Code Supreme commenter said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:28PM HighFiveJesus said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 6:03PM Code Supreme commenter said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:34PM Halgrimur said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:44PM drunkingamebar said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:36PM Teeree said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:04PM pluupy said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 6:04PM Code Supreme commenter said

Posted: Jan 15th 2012 12:40AM Blay said

Posted: Jan 15th 2012 4:21PM clapperdude said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:38PM LaughingTarget said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:59PM Halgrimur said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 3:55PM thecoon said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:04PM arucious said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:09PM gettinmoney662 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 6:56PM Esposch said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 9:29PM JakeAuditore said

Posted: Jan 15th 2012 4:07AM maxwell97 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:05PM Dynamite Jack said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:06PM Esposch said

Posted: Jan 15th 2012 7:28PM MAINEiac4434 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:07PM TraceurRyuk Part III said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:36PM molotovzav said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:25PM Mujokan said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:46PM Once known as Shadsy said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 4:41PM molotovzav said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 8:49PM SmarmyJerkface said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 9:09PM s256 said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:38PM Gandkaidos said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:43PM Once known as Shadsy said

Posted: Jan 14th 2012 5:58PM Otakkun said

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