Sopa Vote Delayed Indefinitely

A vote on the Stop Online Privacy Act has been postponed until 2012. The House Judiciary Committee has been debating the bill for the last two days and was expected to send the bill to the House floor for a vote. But the committee adjourned abruptly on Friday without setting a new vote date.

Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit and Demand Progress, said:

“This is a huge victory for everyone who uses the Internet — and proof that millions of people speaking out can still make a difference in a Congress usually run by corporate lobbyists.”

The Huffington Post reports that the delayed vote is a big win for internet users, but it will also allow for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and other supporters of the bill to raise money and gather support from Hollywood Studios and record labels.

Smith said that the hearing on SOPA would resume the “earliest practical day that Congress is in session.” According to Wired, the 11-hour marathon hearing on Thursday was halted after Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) urged Smith to allow technical experts to review SOPA before it was put to a vote.

SOPA is designed to stop people from pirating movies, television, and music from the internet. But tech experts warn that the bill could alter the face of the internet. A large group of internet engineers, including Vint Cert, John Gilmore and L. Jean Camp, wrote an open letter to Smith and the House Committee to oppose SOPA. They wrote:

“The US government has regularly claimed that it supports a free and open internet, both domestically and abroad. We cannot have a free and open Internet unless its naming and routing systems sit above the political concerns and objectives of any one government or industry.”

Do you think congress will end up passing the Stop Online Piracy Act?