Dodd’s ‘yearnings’ won’t revive SOPA, group says

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) isn’t coming back despite the “yearnings” of the movie industry, an opponent of the bill declared Thursday. 

Public Knowledge, a consumer group that fought vigorously against the Internet piracy bill before it was shelved in January, blasted former Sen. Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), for suggesting it could be revived. 

"It should be clear to everyone by now that SOPA and its Senate counterpart, PIPA, are still dead, despite the yearnings of Senator Dodd,” Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in a statement.

"It is simply amazing that a mere two months after 14 million people, in one of the largest protests of its kind, voiced their opposition to SOPA and PIPA and after the dramatic Web blackout day, that the head of the Motion Picture Association of America said the dreadfully flawed legislation could be reworked in the back rooms of Washington,” Sohn said.

Dodd told the Hollywood Reporter he’s “confident” that negotiations on a new version of SOPA are under way. 

"But I'm not going to go into more detail because, obviously, if I do, it becomes counterproductive," he said.

SOPA, sponsored in the House by Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), was aimed at cracking down at online copyright infringement, but it was put on hold after coordinated protests from websites including Google and Wikipedia. The tech industry claimed the legislation was a threat to innovation and Internet freedom.

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