If you missed all the excitement in December, here’s a quick update – The US House of Representatives special committee decided to proceed with their debate on the proposed amendments to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – scheduled for December 15th. Here’s a link to the actual amendment proposed by Representative Lamar Smith.
Did they spend hours debating? YES
Did they amend the proposed amendments? YES
Did they get any closer to amending the Act in 2011? NOPE!
In fact, after successive days of meetings, debates, rewrites, etc… the special committee decided to delay the actual vote until sometime in 2012. It is the holidays after all.
So the gloves will have to come off – again – sometime next year when the committee reconvenes to address what many consider to be the poorly written Act with good intentions (meaning: to protect against online intellectual property theft and prevent copyright infringement).
And with Hollywood becoming SOPA’s biggest fan, the reversal from GoDaddy, and Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt words of caution, 2012 should get off to an exciting start as congress, businesses, and individuals continue to search for the best way to protect content from being duplicated and distributed without permission. Hopefully this time it won’t be cause to Hurry-up and Wait again. Stay tuned for more.
Happy Holidays From
Team Distil
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