After an ocean of angry protest, massive websites taking drastic measures, and even the artists they weren’t meant to protect standing against them, Congress has been forced to put an end to the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piract Act) and PIPA (PROTECT IP) acts.

Both the Senate, who was getting ready to hold a procedural vote on PIPA next week, and the House of Representatives have taken notice to the extremely negative response to their plans, and have decided to put it all on hold until something a little bit more agreeable can be put together.

Obviously the goal is to find a fair and just way to combat online piracy, but when your proposed act has a bunch of people behind it who clearly have no clue what they’re doing and cite their not being enough of a Nerd to understand it as an excuse, yes, you’re going to face some heavy backlash.

So what’s next? Well, there’s already a new bipartisan proposal called OPEN (Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act) which claims to protect the rights and freedoms that SOPA and PIPA threatened, but whether it will gain support or not remains to be seen.

[Source: CNN]