Leaders of opposition to SOPA and PIPA in Congress congratulate Net strike organizers

As we report­ed ear­li­er today, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid has scrapped plans to hold a vote on the “Pro­tect IP Act”, also known as PIPA, next Tuesday.

PIPA is one of the two MPAA and RIAA-backed bills that would per­mit major media con­glom­er­ates to indi­rect­ly cen­sor the Inter­net, using the long arm of the Depart­ment of Jus­tice. The net­roots com­mu­ni­ty has been work­ing in coop­er­a­tion with activists from across the polit­i­cal spec­trum to defeat the bills, cul­mi­nat­ing in Wednes­day’s Inter­net strike… a glob­al protest against PIPA and its House equiv­a­lent, SOPA (the “Stop Online Pira­cy Act”).

Those efforts paid off today with Sen­a­tor Rei­d’s deci­sion not to bring PIPA to the Sen­ate floor next week, and Texas Repub­li­can Lamar Smith’s sep­a­rate announce­ment that SOPA will not be mov­ing for­ward (for now) in the House.

The lead­ers of the bipar­ti­san effort against the bills all released state­ments prais­ing the news and thank­ing protest par­tic­i­pants for jolt­ing Capi­tol Hill.

“Sen­a­tor Reid’s deci­sion to pull PIPA from the floor is the right one. Leg­is­la­tion impact­ing the future of the Inter­net is sim­ply too impor­tant to get wrong,” said Ore­gon’s senior sen­a­tor, Ron Wyden, who sin­gle­hand­ed­ly stopped PIPA from advanc­ing to the Sen­ate floor in 2011 by plac­ing a hold on the bill.

“PIPA’s authors have been right to iden­ti­fy copy­right infringe­ment and the online sale of coun­ter­feit goods as a prob­lem that Con­gress should work to address. The prob­lem with the approach tak­en by PIPA and the House, Stop Online Pira­cy Act (SOPA) is that it treats the Inter­net as if its only pur­pose was to pro­mote infringe­ment. That approach not only result­ed in reme­dies that would have done irrepara­ble harm to online inno­va­tion, open­ness and free speech, it neglects the con­sid­er­able oppor­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed by today’s dig­i­tal economy.”

“Con­gress should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to do more than work out a com­pro­mise bill, Con­gress should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of the dig­i­tal world and look for ways to both pro­tect and pro­mote dig­i­tal trade and inno­va­tion,” he added.

“I believe the OPEN Act is a good place to start. But before we think about next steps, we should reflect on the his­to­ry that was made this week. More than 15 mil­lion Amer­i­cans got involved in a pol­i­cy debate demon­strat­ing that even in the face of some of the biggest and most pow­er­ful spe­cial inter­ests, every voice counts.”

Wash­ing­ton’s Maria Cantwell agreed.

“I appre­ci­ate Sen­a­tor Reid’s deci­sion to post­pone a vote on the PROTECT IP Act” Cantwell said in a midafter­noon state­ment. “America’s econ­o­my thrives on inno­va­tion and free­dom of speech. We can’t afford to rush an Inter­net pol­i­cy that could tram­ple on our inno­va­tion economy.”

“This week, the Amer­i­can peo­ple clear­ly spoke – and their voic­es were heard. Thank you to the thou­sands of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans who raised your voic­es this week to sup­port an open and free Internet.”

“As we move for­ward, I’ll con­tin­ue to advo­cate for a pol­i­cy that pro­tects both cre­ative con­tent and online free­dom of speech. I was proud to be part of the orig­i­nal bipar­ti­san coali­tion offer­ing an alter­na­tive to PROTECT IP. Now, I encour­age Con­gress to con­sid­er the OPEN Act, which address­es ille­gal pira­cy and secu­ri­ty while keep­ing the Inter­net open for free speech and innovation.”

Repub­li­can Con­gress­man Dar­rell Issa also con­grat­u­lat­ed strike orga­niz­ers and par­tic­i­pants after Reid announced his deci­sion to put off a vote.

“Sup­port­ers of the Inter­net deserve cred­it for press­ing advo­cates of SOPA and PIPA to back away from an effort to ram through con­tro­ver­sial leg­is­la­tion,” Issa said in a news release. “Over the last two months, the intense pop­u­lar effort to stop SOPA and PIPA has defeat­ed an effort that once looked unstop­pable but lacked a fun­da­men­tal under­stand­ing of how Inter­net tech­nolo­gies work.

Oth­er state­ments from oppo­si­tion leaders:

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jared Polis (D‑Colorado)
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Zoe Lof­gren (D‑California)
• Sen­a­tor Jer­ry Moran (R‑Kansas)

We at NPI thank Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Issa, Polis, and Lof­gren, as well as Sen­a­tors Wyden, Cantwell, Paul, and Moran for their lead­er­ship in defend­ing the Inter­net against these ill-con­ceived bills. Were it not for them, these bills might be law right now… which is a very scary thought! Thank­ful­ly, nei­ther PIPA or SOPA is on our books, and the Inter­net remains open and free. We must con­tin­ue to be active in pro­tect­ing the Net from future mis­guid­ed legislation.