Where Does the SOPA Bill Stand Now?

[mojo]

SOPA was once expected to sail quickly through committee approval in the House. But after a massive pushback from tech companies and their supporters, it's being extensively reworked. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has said SOPA won't come up for a committee vote as-is.
That means the bill could change a lot from day to day -- and one major tenet of the original legislation has already been removed. As originally written, SOPA would have required Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to sites that law enforcement officials deemed pirate sites.
But the White House said its analysis of the original legislation's technical provisions "suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity," and that it wouldn't support legislation that mandates manipulating the Internet's technical architecture.
The White House's statement came shortly after one of SOPA's lead sponsors, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, agreed to remove SOPA's domain-blocking provisions.
Smith's office says it's still planning to work through amendments to the bill, but his representatives declined to estimate how long that will take. They plan to resume revision of the bill in February.
A markeup process once expected to take days is now likely to last for months. As the outcry around SOPA grows louder, the bill's momentum in Congress appears to be fading.

What are the alternatives?
One option, of course, is that Congress does nothing and leaves the current laws in place.
Alternative legislation has also been proposed. A bipartisan group of House members has begun drafting the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN), a compromise bill.
Among other differences, OPEN offers more protection than SOPA would to sites accused of hosting pirated content. It also beefs up the enforcement process. It would allow digital rights holders to bring cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent agency that handles trademark infringement and other trade disputes.
OPEN's backers have posted the draft legislation online and invited the Web community to comment on and revise the proposal.
SOPA supporters counter that the ITC doesn't have the resources for digital enforcement, and that giving it those resources would be too expensive.