Blackouts by sites like Wikipedia and Reddit in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seem to be having some effect. One Senate co-sponsor of PIPA and two House co-sponsors of SOPA pulled their names from the proposed legislation today.

The LA Times has the story:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act in the Senate, while Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said they were pulling their names from the companion House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Opponents of the legislation, led by large Internet companies, say its broad definitions could lead to censorship of online content and force some websites to shut down.

In a posting on his Facebook page, Rubio noted that after the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed its bill last year, he has “heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet.”

That all said, the bills still have 39 co-sponsors left. An important procedural vote is still on the books in the Senate next Tuesday. It’s way too early to get excited.