Less then two full days after some of the world’s top websites began protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the lead sponsor of the bill Lamar Smith, says it will be sent back to the drawing board and redraft with an emphasis on keeping censorship off the table.

Speaking about the decision to keep the bill off the table Smith noted:

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy.” He went on to add: “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Lamar Smith says he’s still committed to protecting “American intellectual property and innovation” but he stopped short of saying how the bill could be changed to reach that goal.

Under the current form of SOPA critics have argued that the bill would allow company’s to easily shut down sites that disagreed with its opinions, while pushing up the cost of community driven sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit by forcing owners to monitor activity in near real-time.  [Read more…]