Its counterpart in the Senate is PIPA (or the Protect IP Act.) Both bills are controversial, and with good reason.

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The companion bill in the Senate is the Protect IP Act.

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The problem with the bill, and its Senate companion, the PROTECT IP Act, is not in its goals: no one disagrees artists should be paid for their work.

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The Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) have reasonable intents, but are singularly poorly constructed, seemingly drafted because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was not producing the intended effect.

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These groups and others, like the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), convinced Congress that copyright interests trumped innovation on the Internet, leading to the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.

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Yesterday came word that a key House hearing originally scheduled for Wednesday will be delayed until there is a "consensus" on the bill, and today the White House has issued an official statement on SOPA (and the Protect IP Act, its counterpart in the Senate) in response to a petition that drew thousands of signatures.

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Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who co-sponsored the Protect-IP Act (PIPA) that served as the Senate equivalent of the SOPA bill, has officially withdrawn his support of PIPA and called for more discussion before new copyright legislation is introduced.

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But there remains another similar bill, Protect IP (the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act), that poses a problem for gamers and Internet users.

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