SOPA FINISHED?
Lawmakers Rush To Drop Piracy Bills As Websites Go Dark
Support for two controversial online-piracy bills began to crumble Wednesday in the face of protests from thousands of websites, including tech titans Google and Wikipedia.The unprecedented online demonstration against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — epitomized by a black censorship bar plastered over the Google logo — spurred a rush for the exits on Capitol Hill as lawmakers rapidly withdrew their support for the legislation. Senate Republicans reacted quickly to the Web blackout, which exposed hundreds of millions of Internet users to the piracy bills for the first time. GOP Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Boozman (Ark.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) dropped their support for the bill. The online demonstrations against the bills were a dramatic display of power by the tech industry, which has waged a full-on assault against the piracy bills and their supporters in the entertainment industry. Wikipedia, the sixth most visited website in the world, blacked out its English-version site and greeted visitors with an ominous warning: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” Google and Wikipedia weren’t the only big-name sites that tried to galvanize opposition. The popular discussion board reddit went dark at 8 a.m. and vowed to “fight back” against Congress.he Senate version of the anti-piracy legislation, and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said the legislation should be put on hold.
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Lawmakers Rush To Drop Piracy Bills As Websites Go Dark
Support for two controversial online-piracy bills began to crumble Wednesday in the face of protests from thousands of websites, including tech titans Google and Wikipedia.The unprecedented online demonstration against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — epitomized by a black censorship bar plastered over the Google logo — spurred a rush for the exits on Capitol Hill as lawmakers rapidly withdrew their support for the legislation. Senate Republicans reacted quickly to the Web blackout, which exposed hundreds of millions of Internet users to the piracy bills for the first time. GOP Sens. Roy Blunt (Mo.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Boozman (Ark.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) dropped their support for the bill. The online demonstrations against the bills were a dramatic display of power by the tech industry, which has waged a full-on assault against the piracy bills and their supporters in the entertainment industry. Wikipedia, the sixth most visited website in the world, blacked out its English-version site and greeted visitors with an ominous warning: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.” Google and Wikipedia weren’t the only big-name sites that tried to galvanize opposition. The popular discussion board reddit went dark at 8 a.m. and vowed to “fight back” against Congress.he Senate version of the anti-piracy legislation, and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who leads the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said the legislation should be put on hold.
READ ENTIRE ARTICLE
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