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 [2].
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."
