SOPA Hearing Delayed Until Early 2012

A hearing to debate and amend the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the United States House of Representatives is delayed until early 2012 due to the holiday break. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee continues with its markup hearings on Wednesday, if the House remains in session.

So far, the committed has voted down around 20 amendments intended to address concerns raised by Web-based companies, as well as Web security analysts and digital rights groups.

If passed and made into law, SOPA would allow the U.S. Department of Justice and copyright holders to file for court orders that would block payment processors and online advertising networks from conducting business with foreign websites that are accused of copyright infringement. Court orders filed by DOJ could also disallow search engines from linking to supposed infringing websites, as well block such websites at the DNS level and require Internet service providers to block access to these sites.

Meanwhile, a petition posted at Whitehouse.gov asking President Obama to veto the bill and other similar bills in the future has reached over 25,000 signatures, well ahead of the January 17 deadline.

Source: House Judiciary Committee, via PC World

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