No, A New SOPA Is Not Likely, But There's Still Plenty Of Damage That Can Be Done

from the not-out-of-the-woods-yet dept

This isn't surprising, as we've been hearing the same thing for a while now, but those in Congress still remember the SOPA/PIPA protests and have no desire to go through that process again. Thus, don't expect a new SOPA/PIPA to show up in Congress any time soon . The article even claims that watered down or limited versions are a bit too scary for politicians. Of course, this still requires plenty of vigilance. As we noted back in July, Lamar Smith did look to zip through one small piece of SOPA when no one was looking, and it wouldn't surprise me to see more "little" attempts like that. But, it seems clear that the main event will move to different venues.Historically, when the entertainment industry doesn't get its way in Congress, it just moves into international fora to seek the same thing. That's how we got the DMCA, of course. Congress hadn't been interested until copyright lobbyists went to WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization) and got it to create a treaty in 1996 that more or less required the DMCA. This is why we're constantly paying attention to various trade agreements and treaties, like TPP and others, which are really (among other things) about creating more ways for the entertainment industry to backdoor in new copyright laws. They'll get these agreements in place, and then point to them and insist that we have to change our laws due to "international obligations," ignoring, of course, that they were the same people who got those international obligations put in there in the first place.

Filed Under: congress, copyright, sopa, tpp