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U.S. lawmakers halted controversial anti-piracy legislation Friday, delivering a stunning victory for websites like Wikipedia that staged an unprecedented online protest this week to try and kill the bills.

The legislation, known as PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) in the Senate and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House of Representatives, are aimed at curbing access to websites that traffic in pirated content and counterfeit products, such as movies and music.

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Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he would postpone a critical vote that had been scheduled for January 24 “in light of recent events.”

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Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, followed suit, saying his panel would delay action on similar legislation until there is wider agreement on the issue.

The two pieces of legislation set off a wave of protests across the Web this week, which included the popular Website Wikipedia going dark on Wednesday and Silicon Valley giant Google Inc. blacking out part of its homepage to U.S. users.