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SOPA Timeline

By Sammisnv

  • Protect IP Act and Commercial Felony Streaming Act (Bieber bill) introduced in Senate.

    Overwhelming initial support: 40 co-sponsors, 11 at time of introduction
    http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s968/show
    http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s978/show

  • Protect IP Act passes Senate Judiciary Committee by unanimous voice vote.

    Mark-up session is 7 minutes long and no amendments are debated. Bill is placed on senate calender.

  • Commercial Felony Streaming Act is passed by Judiciary Committee by unanimous voice vote.

  • Gamer community recognizes the broad implications the felony streaming provisions in S. 978 (which later became part of SOPA).

    Videos by gamers are increasingly posted on YouTube. A Demand Progress call to action gains attention.

  • FreeBieber.org launches against the felony-streaming provisions in S. 978, provisions that would eventually became part of SOPA.

  • Anti-PIPA video released by FFTF

    4 million+ views over next 3 months on Vimeo + YouTube

  • SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) introduced in House with strong support

    31 co-sponsors (12 at time of introduction)

  • Justin Bieber says on the radio that Amy Klobuchar should be ‘locked up’ for supporting the felony-streaming provisions in S. 978 and SOPA

  • American Censorship Day is held to commemorate the House Judiciary Committee's first hearing on SOPA (6000 + websites)

    • 1 million+ Congress contacts in one day
    • 2 million petition signers
    • Unprecedented Tumblr blackout (first major web company direct action)
    • 80,000 calls generated to Congress
    • Thousands of sites blacked out their logo all day
    • First mass political participation by web companies
    • Rep. Lofgren participates and censors her page
    • Reddit community becomes active on SOPA
    • subreddit /SOPA gains 10,000+ subscribers in just a few days

  • Responding to day of protests, Nancy Pelosi tweets her opposition to SOPA

  • Period: to

    • 100,000's of calls during coalition-wide call-in campaigns to House Judiciary CommitteeDecember 1

  • Colbert Report covers SOPA / PIPA

    One of the first major television coverage moments. (many TV news parent companies are SOPA supporters)

  • The House Judiciary Committee holds hearings on SOPA

    Huge online audience for the hearing. Dozens of amendments introduced and voted down

  • Hearing ends without completing markup.

  • Reddit post suggests transferring domains away from GoDaddy for their support of SOPA and PIPA

    Over 80,000 domain names were transferred in a matter of days. On December 23, Wikipedia announces transfer of all domains from GoDaddy.

  • GoDaddy issues statement changing their public position on the bills to opposed.

  • Operation Pull Ryan on reddit generates $15,000 for the opposition candidate

  • People attend town halls and start organizing in-person meetings with their Senators over the January recess

  • SOPA Strike is announced for Jan 18th -sopastrike.com launches to organize protest

    Six Republican Senators ask Reid to cancel PIPA vote scheduled for Jan 24
  • Period: to

    More members of Congress start to come out against the bills citing meetings with constituents.

  • Obama administration publishes blog post opposing SOPA / PIPA

  • Web Goes on Strike: Largest Online Protest in History

    SOPA Strike Protest Happens
    More than 1 billion people saw anti-SOPA messages on January 18
    4 top-10, 13 top-100 US sites, 115,000 small and medium sites participated in strike, 50,000 blacked out all or part of site (Wordpress network: 27,000 blackout and 17,000 ribbons)
    10 million petition signers, 3 million emails, 100,000+ calls and 8 million Wikipedia calls
    Senate responses:
    At least 13 senators backed away from the bill in one day. 5 co-sponsors dropped thei suport of the bill:

  • Senate plans to take up PIPA

    Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) plans fillibuster