Lamar Smith Postpones Action on SOPA ‘Indefinitely’

House Judiciary Committee Chairman and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) lead Sponsor Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced on Friday that he was postponing any further action on the bill.

Smith said he would stop work on the bill until there was wider agreement on a solution to combating piracy. Earlier this week, SOPA was stopped in its tracks by Virginia Republican Representative Eric Cantor, but on Wednesday Smith was defiant, saying that he planned to continue working on the bill in February in a markup committee hearing.

"I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy," Smith said in a statement. "It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

"The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore," he continued. "American intellectual property industries provide 19m high-paying jobs and account for more than 60pc of US exports. The theft of America's intellectual property costs the US economy more than $100bn annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack. "

"The committee will continue work with both copyright owners and internet companies to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America's intellectual property," he concluded. "We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem. The committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation."

Source: Silicon Republic.



  1. 0
    hellfire7885 says:

    Whenever jobs are lost in the industry, it's usually a publisher shutting down a successful studio, like what happened with the makers of Viewtiful Joe. very successful series, yet the studio was closed anyway.

  2. 0
    Craig R. says:

    Yes, that is what I meant.

    The notion that some 750k jobs were lost because of piracy is utterly absurd. And even if piracy was somehow stopped tomorrow, those mythical jobs wouldn't exist again; those mythical employees wouldn't suddenly be rehired.

    They've been called out on all these mythical figures over and over again, and yet they never stop pulling them out of their backside.

  3. 0
    GoodRobotUs says:

    I think what he means is that he feels the claims that piracy is costing jobs is facetious, and that introducing SOPA wouldn't do anything to curb the streamlining that most developers seem to be having to do. I could be wrong though.

    If so, I agree with him to a degree, the problem, I think, is more about the reduction of disposable income than piracy itself, but I do not think that the losses due to it have no financial impact whatsoever. I think it's one of those 'we'll never know' situations.

  4. 0
    Craig R. says:

    Already well past tired on 'jobs' being the latest political buzzword. No jobs will be created by the passage of SOPA; it'll just be more money to line the pockets of execs who in turn pass some of that money on to Congresscritters.

  5. 0
    Davvolun says:

    So apparently it's not just misguided, misinformed idiots criticizing it now? Thanks Lamar. Unfortunately I failed to look up online piracy from a site other than wikipedia during the blackout, sorry.

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