United Liberty

Politico is reporting that, in light of Wednesday’s massive protest against the Senates Protect IP Act, or PIPA, vote on that bill will be postponed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has postponed a procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday on the PROTECT IP Act, although he held out a glimmer of hope for a compromise in an online piracy push that many were proclaiming dead.

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT IP Act,” Reid said in a statement.

“We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks,” Reid said.

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved,” he added. “Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices.”

Translation: We’re still going to try and screw freedom over…we just have to come up with a new way of doing it.

The reality is that online piracy is generally happening off-shore, and no domestic law is really going to combat it.  This the realm of diplomacy and treaties, not draconian legislation that will only hurt the innocent and do nothing to combat the alleged problem.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that nothing will happen because neither side wants to budge.  Here’s hoping.