The dynamic that stopped it is also underreported: with Republicans lining up against the bills, Democrats started seeing the bills as a partisan liability in an election year. I'm most concerned that if anything, the debate has shifted in favor of the pro-SOPA crowd, even if SOPA is dead. Some kind of consensus has emerged that something must be done, even if SOPA and PIPA aren't it. Thing is, that's dangerously false and makes the resurgence of this battle likely.
While the author makes good points, I believe it is very premature to call it stopped. "Stopped" would be passing positive law staking control over the area SOPA/PIPA wanted to control. What we continue to have is empty space that no one controls. I think that is better classified as a standoff or draw.
I think the author is correct that we have the democracy that we fight for.
The main problem here is not the media giving credit to Google or Wikipedia for what happened with those bills.
Not even us not acknowledging our own results.
How many times is Wikipedia going to blackout to raise awareness about bad legislation?
How many times is Google going to post a message in its homepage, about a political matter, instead of just negotiating a beneficial exit for them?
The main problem is a vast majority of us, the people, not caring about what happens at any level of out political structures.
We all know that corporations pay big checks to politicians, just to make them present and pass their bills. We all know that money buys friends. And BIG money, buys BIG friends.
SOPA and PIPA may have been delayed. Even stopped. But without trying to go further, without trying to change this corrupted system, it's just a matter of time to see again and again and again our rights to be stamped and stolen from us.
Everything is useless if eat from the bread of complacency and drink from the glass of auto-satisfaction. If we go to bed thinking "we've done it", instead of "we have a lot of things to do".
My money is on conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and National Review coming out against it (largely for reasons that the tech community was not focusing on) as the main driving force of change, at least on the Republican side.
I think they came out against it for the same reasons
While the federal government does have a role in protecting intellectual property rights, it should do so in a way that does not weaken internet security, disrupt growth or restrict free speech rights
Hollywood and other content providers seeking to protect their copyrighted materials, and Internet firms seeking to protect their interest in a Web that remains largely free of government supervision. We favor an Internet that is largely free of regulation and taxes; we also favor observing the Eighth Commandment.
I only expected to read about SOPA/PIPA on HN and other tech media sites, but I was rather surprised to see dozens of my non-techy friends on facebook protesting the bills. Good step forward. Lets keep it up.
It's disturbing that we're to the point that people are celebrating this - lawmakers actually carrying out the will of their constituents, standing up for something sensible and refusing to pass a very dangerous bill that is probably unconstitutional should not be rare.
