If you've been keeping up on the SOPA and PIPA bills (and you should be!), you probably heard the good news today. Lamar Smith, a Texas House Judiciary Committee member, has removed the DNS part of SOPA from the bill. No better reason is given then he knows that with that part of the bill gone, it stands a much better chance of being pushed through. Kind of hard to applaud Smith's change when you know the reason behind it, huh?
DNS blocking was easily the most egregious part of the bill, allowing copyright holders to contact ISP's and have them block access to "offending" sites with little hassle. The ease with which a company would have been able to report such an offense was much too lenient and could have easily led to abuse from some of the more copyright-protective companies.
SOPA is still a major threat, a much too aggressive form of copyright protection that treads on censorship at times. Also, SOPA had the DNS part of it removed but PIPA still has it. It is too soon to call the bills dead at this point but we can feel a bit better from this point forward if the men behind them are more willing to change them than we thought.
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