SOPA Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Sleeping (Until February)

Oh, you thought SOPA was dead? That the riled rallying of the entire Internet, the blacking out of dozens of popular websites in protest, or the President himself coming out against the bill would be enough to kill it off?

Nope. It’ll be back — they’re just taking a little break.

News of the expected return comes from Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, who said:

“To enact legislation that protects consumers, businesses and jobs from foreign thieves who steal America’s intellectual property, we will continue to bring together industry representatives and Members to find ways to combat online piracy.

Due to the Republican and Democratic retreats taking place over the next two weeks, markup of the Stop Online Piracy Act is expected to resume in February.”

In other words: it’s clearly got too much opposition right now, so they’re going to shelf it for a few weeks (presumably with the hopes everyone has moved on to being angry about something else, as the Internet tends to do.) The challenge: don’t move on. Keep protesting. Keep explaining to your not-so-tech-savvy friends what SOPA could mean to them and the sites they love. Keep being angry.