SOPA/PIPA Dead, At Least For Now

Huge win for the Internet, its users, and democracy.  LA Times:

The SOPA online piracy bill that helped spark this week’s unprecedented Internet protests will be redrafted, its lead sponsor said Friday.

The move came shortly after the Senate postponed a key vote on the companion PIPA bill scheduled for next week and amid calls for consensus before Congress moves forward on any legislation to address the problem of foreign piracy websites.

This New York Times article covers a lot of the work many of the grassroots groups — including Demand Progress — have undertaken to help us win this fight.  (We’ve grown from squat to more than one million members strong over the last year.)  And these quotes from the boss of the Hollywood Lobby are perhaps the most extraordinary words of all:

The MPAA (the lobby for big movie studios which created these terrible bills) was shocked and seemingly humbled.  “‘This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,’ MPAA Chairman and former Senator Chris Dodd told the New York Times. ‘[PIPA and SOPA were] considered by many to be a slam dunk.’”

“’This is altogether a new effect,’ Mr. Dodd said, comparing the online movement to the ArabSpring. He could not remember seeing ‘an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically’ in the last four decades, he added.”