Background: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy (D-VT) indicated today he will effectively remove from his Protect Intellectual
Property Act (PIPA) bill the controversial mandate to block access to Web sites
accused of hosting infringing material.
The Leahy statement is here.
The following is attributed to Sherwin Siy,
deputy legal director of Public Knowledge:
“We appreciate the action Chairman
Leahy is taking to improve his legislation. Even with that change, however, the bill would still be
unacceptable. The definitions in
the bill are still far too sweeping, it still grants too much enforcement power
to private parties, and still
confers inappropriate blanket immunity for private companies.
“We look forward to a continuing
refinement of the legislation prior to its Jan. 24 scheduled consideration by
the Senate with the hope there will be common ground on which can agree.”