Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (NV) has postponed a vote on PIPA due to various issues and protests surrounding the bill, stating there’s “no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved.”
In a statement, Reid said he was “optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks,” and hopes the bill’s backer, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (VT), can help resolve issues with its legislation.
“Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs,” Reid said. “We must take action to stop these illegal practices.”
On Thursday, in move which surprised some of his more liberal constituents, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), encouraged Reid to postpone action on the bill, as other senators previously behind PIPA and the similar bill SOPA, dropped support.
Last week, Leahy, has said more study was needed regarding DNS blocking proposed in his bill before it went to vote. His backpedaling was due to the outpouring of protest from his constituents in Vermont.
“I and the bill’s co-sponsors have continued to hear concerns about the Domain Name provision from engineers, human rights groups, and others,” Leahy said in a statement. “I have also heard from a number of Vermonters on this important issue. I remain confident that the ISPs – including the cable industry, which is the largest association of ISPs – would not ...
