Dodd backtracks, says anti-piracy bill SOPA is 'dead' and 'gone'

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) might be dead after all. 

Former senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, backtracked after suggesting the legislation could be reworked for another go-round in Congress. 

"It's gone. In my view, it's dead," Dodd said in an interview for Bloomberg's "Conversations with Judy Woodruff" that is set to air this weekend.

Dodd had sparked talk of a SOPA revival last week when he told the Hollywood Reporter he was "confident" that talks were underway to revive the anti-piracy bill.

SOPA, along with its Senate companion bill called PROTECT IP, was pulled from the calendars in both the House and Senate in January following a massive public outcry and online "Internet Blackout Day" protest that was led by Google, the Wikimedia Foundation and other major Internet companies. 

The campaign mobilized millions of Internet users to sign petitions and contact Congress in order to register objections to the bills.

The MPAA and the entertainment industry strongly supported both bills, arguing they were needed to curb copyright theft.

Despite the extremely prominent public meltdown of the legislation, Dodd had said SOPA was not actually dead, but was instead being reworked by people more familiar with the connections between content and technology.

Dodd told the Reporter that negotiations on new language for the anti-piracy bill were ongoing, but said going into detail would be "counterproductive."

— This story was updated at 1:46 p.m.

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