Both SOPA and PIPA are looking less likely, at least for now.
Marco Rubio Jumps Protect IP Ship Amid Internet Blackout Protest
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"Grassroots activism has stripped away the vote from Disney World's senator and made California's senators much more likely to vote no," said David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, a liberal activist group.
Segal was alluding in particular to the position of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was once a Protect IP co-sponsor but began seeking to amend the bill in recent weeks. Feinstein sought to broker a compromise between Hollywood and Silicon Valley interests, but Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, declined the invitation on behalf of the major movie studios. Although she has not formally withdrawn her support for Protect IP, Feinstein is now trying to alter the legislation to allay concerns from the tech community.
Corporate film studios and major record labels laud Protect IP and SOPA as a robust effort to crack down on the piracy of American goods. But online giants, as well as tech experts and free speech advocates, have decried the bill's copyright protection strategy for threatening the normal functioning of the Internet and facilitating First Amendment violations by deploying extreme techniques similar to censorship tools used by the Chinese government.
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