SOPA and PIPA: Room for compromise?

House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) this week tapped his loyal lieutenant, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), to bring the warring factions together and salvage his Stop Online Piracy Act. But this saga might not have a Hollywood ending.

There are three big hurdles for the Senate and House bills that caused websites to go dark Jan 18 in protest.

On paper, it boils down to these issues:

1. Should search engines like Google be included in the bill?
2. Can content owners like Walt Disney ask a court to force Internet companies to stop doing business with suspected pirate sites?
3. Who should enforce the law against international pirate sites — the Justice Department or the International Trade Commission?

After the success of the Internet blackout, however, not everyone is in a compromising frame of mind. Many lawmakers up for reelection in the fall would like to dodge the issue now that the voting masses have been riled up because it’s better to say on the campaign trail that you killed SOPA than it is to say you made it work.