White House “Will not support” current iteration of SOPA; controversial legislation put on hold

The
Stop Online Piracy Act, aka SOPA, will not go to a vote this week as
originally intended. The Act was to go before the Senate
this Wednesday; following widely-voiced public opposition to the
legislation, the Obama Administration issued a statement over the
weekend expressing concern at some of the legislation’s tenets. Voting on
the Act was postponed today, with representative Darrell Issa
(R-CA) saying he was “confident that flawed legislation will not be
taken up by this House.”

The
White House’s statement affirmed some of the reasoning behind SOPA,
stating that “online piracy by foreign websites is a serious
problem that requires a serious legislative response.” However, the
Administration also affirmed the value of an “open internet based
on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation,”
saying it wouldn’t support legislation which threatened these
principles.

The
statement comes on the heels of an outpouring of public opposition to
SOPA. While the Entertainment Software Association has endorsed the
Act, companies including Mojang, Good Old Games and Epic have
distanced themselves from the legislation, with even the likes of
Sony and Nintendo removing their names from the list of supporters.
Come Wednesday 18, a lengthy list of websites and software companies
will be staging an online “blackout” to raise awareness of the
Act, with Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales warning that “SOPA is far from
dead – just dormant.”