SOPA hearing is postponed

A HEARING in the US House of Representatives about the future of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will not happen until next year.

The hearing was set for today and had kicked off a lot of fresh opposition to the odious bill, however that hearing will be delayed until next year. This apparently is due to a scheduling conflict with prolonged discussions about US President Obama's tax plans.

On 16 December, the House Judiciary Committee said that the bill was looking much better after 25 amendments. Committee chairman Lamar Smith said, "I am pleased that the unfounded claims of critics of the Stop Online Piracy Act have overwhelmingly been rejected by a majority of House Judiciary Committee members."

"The criticism of this bill is completely hypothetical; none of it is based in reality. Not one of the critics was able to point to any language in the bill that would in any way harm the Internet. Their accusations are simply not supported by any facts. This much-needed legislation makes it harder for foreign thieves to steal and sell America's intellectual property. The Stop Online Piracy Act protects the profits, products and jobs that rightly belong to American innovators."

This is not the end of the criticisms however, and firms like Google will remain committed to opposing the bill. Elsewhere protest songs have appeared on the internet in opposition and outfits like Wikipedia have promoted the idea of an online strike to show what could happen if SOPA is approved.

The Committee has published a full list of SOPA supporters, and it reads like a Who's Who of copyright holders and media companies. µ