News
New Anti-Piracy Act from U.S. Congress Leaked
posted on by Gia Manry
The digital content business website PaidContent.org reported on Wednesday that the contents of a new anti-piracy act being drafted by the United States Congress have been leaked. The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property ("PROTECT IP") Act would allow the Justice Department to shut down websites which are "dedicated to infringing activities" via court order, rather than via litigation which the owner can defend against. These closures would take the form of seizing the domain names, blocking ad networks and payment processing for the site, and requiring search engines to delist the sites. The bill would also allow copyright and trademark owners to block ad networks and payment processing.
The text of the act defines an infringing site as having little or no substantial use other than the "reproduction, distribution, or performance" of "substantially complete" copyrighted works.
A similar bill, the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act," proceeded through the Senate last September. However, Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat from Oregon) vowed to place a hold on the bill and succesfully prevented its passage last year.
