With the ongoing Republican presidential primaries sandwiched between debates that had often resembled hockey fights, and the President’s State of the Union address, the controversy over Internet piracy has been sometimes attention-challenged over the last couple of weeks.

However, the hand-wringing over the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act), which has spread world-wide, remains on the radar and probably isn’t going anywhere.

Things came to a head on January 18, when Wikipedia, one of the most significant sites on the Web, shut itself down for one day. Google, the world’s top search engine, didn’t go that far, but whimsically put a black patch across the logo on its site for that day.

Eminent director Michael Moore chipped in his support, pulling the plug on his sites for 24 hours. Reddit also closed its figurative doors for a day.

“I think we all knew the powers that be would eventually try to kill the world web as we’ve come to love it and know it,’’ said Moore. “I’m sure it’s just an accident that these bills are being proposed after a year where uprisings around the world were literally started on the Internet. “This is as scary device to those in power and I’m sure they rue the day they allowed us to talk to each other.’’

SOPA, which is now stalled after being slated to be voted on this month (optimists would like to think it’s dead) in the U.S. House of Representatives, as is PIPA, and has been pulled from the floor for now. Both are designed to quash the distribution of pirated movies and other content - sports events included - by so-called rogue websites, almost always overseas.

Several of such sites were shut down by Homeland Security last year, including an outfit that was streaming NFL games and content of other professional sports leagues.

Big-monied entities such as Time Warner, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Association of America are among the more ardent supporters of the bill. The bill was authored by Sen. Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

Another big proponent of the anti-piracy legislation is the Wall Street Journal, owned by Fox News maven Rupert Murdoch. The WSJ described the on-line protest, as well as rallies in cities such as New York and Seattle, as a “cybertantrum.’’ A group called SopaStrike took an opposite take calling the activity, “Geeks took to the streets.’’

Former Senator Chris Dodd, now chairman and CEO of the MPAA, wasn’t so amused by the latter. He railed against the resistance to the anti-piracy acts recently on Fox News. “This industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,’’ said Dodd. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.’’

Supporters have claimed online piracy sets the U.S. economy back about $250 billion a year. This claim has been contested by many parties, including the folks at Freakonomics.com.

In a letter to the New York Times last November, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said, “Rogue Web sites that steal America’s innovative and creative products attract more than 53 billion visits a year and threaten more than 19 million American jobs.’’

Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University, said to San Jose’s MercuryNews.com: “We can’t send in the feds, and the intellectual property (IP) owners can’t go after them in U.S. court. “So these bills create ways to marginalize websites by cutting off their domain name or their money supply, doing things like requiring credit-card companies to stop making payments to the sites and require ad networks to drop them as customers.’’

There is plenty of muscle on the other side of the aisle as well. Besides Wikipedia and Google, Facebook, Twitter, EBay and Reddit are also against SOPA, as is President Obama.

Google garnered some 7,000,000 signatures in an effort to blunt the piracy acts. And Wikipedia's self-imposed closing got everyone’s attention on both sides.

“Both SOPA and PIPA are threats not just to the U.S. economy, and not just to all the jobs that this tech sector creates, but if they had existed, Steve Huffman and I could have never founded Reddit,” company co-founder Alexis Ohanian told CNN.com. “Millions visit Reddit to submit interesting links from Web sites, discuss them and vote on them.’’ Ohanian added that Reddit was “sort of democratic front page of the Web” and that fighting the bills was, “a fight to save Democracy. Let this be the beginning.’’

At the protest in New York, New York Tech Meetup chairman Andrew Rasiej was equally emphatic. “This is about the future of New York and the future of the open Web,’’ he said. “What we are seeing here is a classic example of our 20th century politics clashing with the realities of a 21st century connected to humanity and a global economy.’’

All the hoo-hah against the anti-piracy legislation obviously had an effect. Eighteen senators, virtually all Republicans and many of whom co-sponsored PIPA, renounced their support of the bill. Included among that bunch are well-known Senators Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Likely these politicos realized that even their most avid Republican constituents don’t want anyone to fiddle with their Internet the way it has been.

With SOPA and PIPA taking a timeout, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) continues to plug OPEN (Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act). Co-Authored with Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), OPEN is pegged as a less invasive piracy act, SOPA lite, if you will.

Sounding downright progressive, Issa told CNN that the web blackouts, “turned the tide against a backroom lobbying effort by interests that aren’t used to being told no.’’ Word is the government would like some sort of anti-piracy legislation in place this year. The Issa-Wyden OPEN could have a shot, since there is widespread dislike for SOPA and PIPA.

“There are better ways to address piracy than to ask U.S. companies to censor the Internet,’’ said Google chief legal officer David Drummond on the company blog. “The foreign rogue Web sites are in it for the money, and we believe the best way to shut them down is to cut off their sources of funding.’’