SOPA Shelved: White House opposition leads congress to abandon the bill...for now

After facing heat from the White House over the weekend, it appears that the hot-button Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as SOPA, will be put on ice — at least for now. Today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor declared that the controversial bill will not come to a vote unless a consensus could be reached.

The White House issued its first official statement opposing the bill on Saturday, stating that it "will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." The announcement comes as some relief to anti-SOPA activists the web over; it is the first time that the White House has openly cited core concerns about internet freedom and thrown its weight toward the bill's vast popular opposition.

Since SOPA began picking up steam, a wave of backlash on the web has manifested in everything from tweaked Twitter icons to the possibility of full-blown website blackouts, like the one threatened by Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales, a staunch opponent of SOPA. A huge coalition of the web's most prominent companies also came out swinging against the bill in an open letter last November.

Shortly after the White House statement, the Motion Picture Associate of America (MPAA) asserted its plans to march SOPA forward, with its considerable industry heft. Another prominent SOPA-backer, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has been tweeting up a storm about the White House's decision to oppose SOPA. While the bill is off track for now, SOPA's friends in high places aren't likely to let the bill — nor its Senate counterpart legislation, the PROTECT IP act — fizzle out without a fight. Now, all eyes will be on PIPA, which is still on track for a vote in the Senate on January 24.

[via The Guardian]

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