Senator Marco Rubio drops support for PIPA

Hence the next sentence:

"Since then, we've heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government's power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences."

Actually, Sen. Rubio and his colleagues got played by the RIAA and MPAA. They were likely told that the "Internet" supported the bill (GoDaddy) and that the scope was limited to foreign sites. Further, incompetent and/or corrupt staff told him it was ok to support. The way it works, most tech staff on the Hill don't actually understand the technology, and also want to lobby for Big Copyright someday.

The result: "no controversy." But I think there's possible lasting damage for the RIAA and MPAA's reputation in Washington, people got burned by this bill.

Pretty sure it means stealing movies on a boat.

I noticed that in the MPAA speech too. Copyright is a social construct, not a fundamental truth. It's not really American's place to set the social standards for other countries.

In practice, it just means any site under a foreign TLD. See PIPA § 2, Para 9.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c112:2:./temp/~c112BGM...:

Make no mistake. The entire site blocking mechanism of this legislation was always intended to target foreign websites. The broad overreaching scope that ignores due process and the DNS provisions, the part everyone has been mad and vocal about are the products of this. But the intent has always been to stop foreign sites.

The Pirate Bay has been the slipperiest fish to tangle with. Every attempt they have made to stop or block it, including alleged manipulation and influence of Swedish courts and law have failed. Because it's a foreign website and we have no jurisdiction over it. So they crafted this law with the intent to have the ability to block Americans from viewing it within America. The way it's worded, it's able to block anything else, too.

So since the outcry and the backlash, they have shifted their narrative to explicitly spotlight those dirty evil foreign interests. But I don't believe for a second that it was never the original goal.

The rhetoric about SOPA and PIPA has always been centered around foreign piracy. The reasoning is very simple: domestic piracy can already be stopped through the DMCA. "Overseas piracy" is basically just defined as any piracy the DMCA can't stop, because it's not within the United States' legal jurisdiction to do so.

Unlike the DMCA, which seeks to stop domestic IP abuse, the point of SOPA and PIPA are to create barriers between foreign IP pirates and domestic consumers, by requiring domestic gateways (which are under US jurisdiction) to police and filter them out.

Got that impression too.

Yup. Translation from CongressSpeak: "Lamar Smith (head of Judiciary Committee) had rigged everything just right, but we got caught out, folks, and now there's too much shit flying 'round. Reid, dude, let's wait a month or two and come back when nobody is watching, ok? Don't worry, we'll still cash those cheques."

Because he is a Republican.

I also get the same feeling. Say some nice things to get some support, when the bill or a very similar bill comes he will just quietly support it.

Good point, I fixed the title.

PIPA is the Senate version of the bill and Rubio is a Senator. He does not have a vote on SOPA. If both passed then they would need to be reconciled into a single bill.

> How many of them will drop support because it's the right thing to do vs. the political thing to do?

Hopefully the same number who initiated support because it was the political thing to do in the first place.

The better question to ask: who in congress has both read and understand the implications of the bills? I'm inclined to think that number is ridiculously small.

I have come to feel this is unrealistic... politics happen. Right and Wrong are mostly subjective..... they always will be..... an entire nation can slowly be turned to accept wholesale genocide as "right". Whether they chose on their own or based on political pressure from constituents, the public at large needs to be more aware and engaged in what the people they elect are up to if they want to be heard. staying silent and expecting everyone to do what you think is right is not realistic.... though you, of course, try to elect someone who will.

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