Over the weekend there was some good news out of Washington when Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va said about the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act:
“We don’t want to be Egypt,”
“Nor do we, when you talk about cybersecurity, a broader issue that goes beyond theft, that goes to the functioning of the internet itself, we don’t want to give government so much power that they have a kill switch, or something like that.”
Rep Goodlatte said “he and his colleagues need to be extremely wary of giving the federal government too much unfettered power when it comes to seizing the domain names of web sites that are suspected of promoting online piracy”.
Rep Goodlatte is the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and spoke about the Leahy bill on C-Span (you can watch his comments here Around 25 Minutes in)
Federal law enforcers need to play fair.
“Narrowing it down to individual domains, we need to be very careful that we’re doing it in a way where due process is properly followed”
“We’re not going to start with what the senate has done , we’re going to start with a careful, fresh look at this.”
This bill which is designed to stop the sale of fake infringing goods, like fake handbags, watches and a like, as well as stop the distribution IP protected material such as songs, movies and books, is a problem because under the proposed law a site may be deemed to be “dedicated to infringement” based on just the links contained on it.
I think that is a definition of a parked page.
This is why all domainers need to keep an eye on this bill which already had a Senate hearing held last week during which almost everyone spoke in favor of it.
Trademark groups the music and movie industry and authors are overwhelming in support of the law.
Under the proposed law the Federal government would have the right to seize domains from the registry without notice to the domain holder placing the burden and expense on the domain holder to get their domain returned, regardless of where the owner of the domain is located, what jurisdiction the domain owner is subject to, or where the registrar is located.
The Feds would simply have to go to the registry with the order and the registry would hand the sites over to the Feds like the have done with the ICE seizures which temporarily took down 84,000 innocent sites last week and caused them to be labeled in the search engines as child porn sites.
Could you imagine what your friends and family might think if they went to your site and you were labeled a child pornographer, even though you had an innocuous site and domain name .
Seriously, there should be a class action against what they did. They surely destroyed or hurt many innocent people’s reputation.
How stupid and overreaching the Gov’t is getting.
John
You can’t just sue the government for this kind of conduct, usually falls as the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
The US is farming out its customer service – as well as other jobs – to India and the Philippines. You people want ALL the US jobs to split the country, fine. If companies can’t protect their trademark and copyright wares, they’ll be further weakened and have even less incentive to keep jobs here! A friend who does payroll for a major studio has regular meetings to discuss online movie and tv show theft, and what can be done, as the studio’s profits dwindle. It IS a major problem that the black market repackages and sells streaming movies and tv.
Louise
Protection of IP interests is important, however the solution must be a balanced approached where everyone property interest, including domain holders interests are protected.
This no notice, no ability to defends oneself domain seizure is too broad and dangerous as shown by last weeks 84,000 erroneous domain name seizure.
@MHB, It really was only ONE erroneous domain name seizure. Would you cut the government some slack? Does the government have to walk on eggshells to protect the general public? How about the ten domains that were rightfully taken down? Is that not a triumph?
This is misreporting along the lines of saying the Playboy Mansion caused Legionaire’s disease. Not you – you pointed out on recent post it was one domain which hosted 84,000 sites. But TorrentFreak is elated, having a field day.
ICANN makes DNSSEC seem like a massive, complicated security feature that will take years to implement in the US, while Sweden and Brazil have implemented it successfully.
Can you take it, if DNSSEC actually becomes reality, hard as ICANN, Verisign, and the major Registrars are fighting it, because it might take a bite out of parked page profits? If it means the long-term security of the internet, can domainers set aside their short-term profits to create a better, more secure internet?
If anything can kill .com it is the US government. I wonder if the trademark interests would like it if someone posted a link to pirated goods in their comment section and phones ICE about it. Maybe then they will at least read their own bill that is full of holes
@ MHB
Louse said,
Would you cut the government some slack?
———
Lets bake them a cake!
This is the same person who claims that it she/he is afraid
of the mob at the registrars
notice all the EVENT FACTS mentioned above does that sound
like a causal blogger with a PERSONAL view. (Govt Spook)
Her/Him? the purpose is to stifle opposition on the blogs,
without fail her is this Fascist every time there is a Govt reference
“Notice all the FACTS mentioned” above does that sound like a causal
blogger with a view … or….. A GOVERNMENT SPOOK.
Just ignore the moron and post your thoughts …
AND DONT CLICK ON HER LINK,
UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET S P A M M E D!
IS IT STILL OK TO DO THAT?
GOOD!
LOUSIE! BUZZ OFF!
Sen Leahy has always been for sale to the lobby clan, him and Orion Hatch.
where the Hell is useless Philip Corin from ICM who let them have a 18-0 vote,
last time around, (this time they will be meet with a bulldozer again that
Fascist (Louise) like Legislation Bill)
Are you proud of your latest achievements, Philip?
So, Landon,
How much time or money did YOU contribute to the ICA? Phil does not work for free…..
What have YOU done to support the domain industry in fighting this or any of the many other intrusions by the IP constituency?
Stop complaining and start doing…….
Landon:
My last name is Corwin, and I represent the ICA, Internet Commerce Association — not ICM, which is the registry associated with the .xxx application.
And yes, I am proud of my achievements on behalf of the ICA, in both ICANN and on Capitol Hill. The fact that COICA got out of Committee on a unanimous vote last year is irrelevant — what is relevant is that it went no further. This year, a bill has not yet even been introduced, and ICA is working with many other concerned parties to make sure that if anything is enacted it is narrowly targeted and preserves the due process rights of legitimate domain registrants.
While working on this I am also preparing for the upcoming ICANN meeting in San Francisco, with the aim of making sure that the rights protection rules for new gTLDs likewise remain fair to registrants, and that the ICANN Board does not retreat on the compromise language now in the draft applicant guidebook. And I am optimistic that the UDRP reform process just kicked off by ICANN can result in some beneficial changes for registrants, and plan to devote lots on my energies toward that in the months ahead.
ICA accomplishes a great deal on a very modest budget — but it could have greater impact if it received broader support from the domain investment community.
Regards,
Philip