Proposed Copyright Bill Enlists ISPs as Enforcers

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A bill intended to control rogue Web sites that offer material that infringes on copyrights and trademarks made a comeback in May, reports the Center for Democracy & Technology. Formally known by the acronym COICA, the new version—S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (Its acronym is PROTECT IP Act)—has changes that narrow the bill’s reach, in response to the earlier bill’s critics.

“In terms of scope, this year’s bill appears to do a much better job of tailoring its definitions to target true bad actors,” writes David Sohn,  senior policy counsel and director of CDT’s Project on Intellectual Property and Technology. “As a result, there is less potential for the bill to inadvertently sweep in legitimate websites. This is an important improvement, since last year’s definition could have applied quite easily to lots of multi-purpose and user-generated-content sites.”

CDT and others oppose provisions of the bill that still enlist ISPs and others as copyright enforcers by ordering them to block certain domain names. Serious concerns have been expressed as well by Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and NetCoaltion. In addition, technical experts from Verisign, Georgia Tech, Internet Systems Consortium, and others issued a paper on the bill’s targeting of the domain name system (DNS), warning that “[m]andated DNS filtering would be minimally effective and would present technical challenges that could frustrate important security initiatives.”