Yesterday Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced HR 3261, the ‘‘Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act of 2011’’, also known as the “E-PARASITE Act.
Its the house version of the PROTECT IP Bill which is even more stringent, provides great penalties on a wider range of people than the quite harsh PROTECT IP bill.
As the names of both bills indicate its all about IP protection and driving by the RIAA, Hollywood interests, Trademark Interests and those representing them. (known as “rights holders”)
The 79 page bill Would Cut Off Website Payment and Ad Services Without Initial Court Review
It requires payment providers and ad networks to terminate their services to a website upon mere receipt of a letter from a rights holder alleging that the website was one “dedicated to theft of U.S. property”.
As the Internet Commerce Association wrote today:
“Any domain registrant who has ever received an aggressive and unsupported cease-and-desist letter from a trademark attorney has got to be concerned by the prospect of having a domain’s ad and payment services shut down absent any court review. The bill would provide the website owner with the ability to seek after-the-fact judicial lifting of the ad and payment suspension – but this expensive and uncertain option would occur during a period when the website had been deprived of all income! Overall, this approach creates major due process concerns and clearly tips the balance against domain registrants and in favor of rights holders.”
The bill’s requires ISPs and search engines to block access to all websites placed on a “blacklist” creating what some has described as a “Great Firewall of America”.
The bill reads:
“”””A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address. Such actions shall be taken as expeditiously as possible, but in any case within 5 days after being served with a copy of the order, or within such time as the court may order.””
To ensure compliance with orders issued pursuant to this section, the Attorney General may bring an action for injunctive relief….
against any entity that knowingly and willfully provides or offers to provide a product or service designed or marketed for the circumvention or bypassing of measures described in paragraph (2) and taken in response to a court order issued pursuant to this subsection, to enjoin such entity from interfering with the order by continuing to provide or offer to provide such product or service. ”
The bill appears to place on ISP and search engines and others affirmative content filtering by domestic websites and according to the ICA “could be a death knell for all domains that provide a platform for user-generated content.”
The House Judiciary Committee will reportedly hold a hearing on the proposal on November 16th.
ICA will be carefully monitoring House consideration of this bill and will be communicating its members’ concerns to Capitol Hill.
For more info on this bill you can check out the story on TechDirt.com
Man…..that’s just plain scary.
And, what happens if Universal Studios wants to take down a foreign studio website?
Or, if Microsoft goes after SalesForce?
Or, Peta goes after ???
Or, one political candidate attempts to take down another political candidate?
Doesn’t Congress have more important things to do?
Is this creating any more jobs in the U.S. other than for lawyers?
Hi,
Thais is why I had been blogging about this “IP Act” so much, back in the spring and early summer,
Anyway….
“Urge Congress To Reject The PROTECT IP Act
PLEASE USE THE FORM AT RIGHT TO EMAIL YOUR LAWMAKERS
Disgusting. Check out this ad the Recording Industry Association, the Motion Picture Association, and others just took out as they try to push their Internet censorship legislation: They think their customers should be treated like criminal suspects.
Under the Internet Blacklist Bill — S.968, formally called the PROTECT IP Act — the Department of Justice would force search engines, browsers, and service providers to block users’ access to websites that have been accused of copyright infringement — without even giving them a day in court.
We need to rally more opposition to this bill — please use the form at right to email your lawmakers, and use these links to share the video and petition with your friends:”
http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_letter/?akid=798.408885.jh4frA&rd=1&t=1
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Videos about the Senates version here:
http://dannosblog.com/2011/08/23/video-the-protect-ip-act-warning-this-bill-may-cause-seizures/
I am sure they will try and “compromise” the TWO into one bill and then vote on it.
BUT,
Any passage of a bill like this, in any form, will destroy the internet as we know it.
The Motion Picture Industry is behind almost ALL this.
The Unintended or Intended consequences passage of a bill like this will be far reaching…maybe right to your own front door.
The final bill cannot pass…
Peace as always,
‘D’
Hi,
From “Cnet”
Rep. Lofgren: Copyright bill is the ‘end of the Internet’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20126590-281/rep-lofgren-copyright-bill-is-the-end-of-the-internet/
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‘D’
Just curious, who is financing the ICA these days. Last I heard, they were out of money years ago and that they would have to give up the fight. Seems they have been able to continue so the question is how are they operating given they were out of cash ages ago.
I am not a lawyer so correct me if i am wrong.
Let’s say i own the domain switch.de and i have it parked with Afternic.
From what i read “It requires payment providers and ad networks to terminate their services to a website upon mere receipt of a letter from a rights holder alleging that the website was one “dedicated to theft of U.S. property”
Does this mean the US trademark owner for Switch can force Google to pull their adds that are displayed on the Afternic parking network for the domain name switch.de ?
This might be an extreme example but reading the article it looks like it can happen.
Again correct me if i am wrong.
Curious
You can look on the ICA site.
My company gives $10K a year,
Sedo, Oversee, Thought Convergence NameDrive are big sponsors also Tucows.
You check check out the ICA site
Right now the ICA is very functional and has a attorney/lobbyist that attends all the ICANN meetings and is active in Washington watching all domain holders back
Hi,
This is just one small thing it could mean, related to the domain industry and parking domains…just as an example.
Say you have domains with the words or related to: movies,video,download(s) etc…
And, on your parking page…just one ad comes up that Ice & homeland security deem to be in violation of any copyright laws…they will take down that site, and will be able to take your domain…for just having a “link” to it.
And you could be charged with violating Federal Copyright Laws…
Just over ‘one link’…you had no control over….
It has not happen to any “parked” domains I know of YET…but IMHO it could very well happen if this bill passes.
For a year then have been taking down sites and charging people…and this bill has not even passed.
BUT,
It has happen to people, who have had say a sports related website, and had link(s) to say some Youtube video or some video streaming service.
And this has happen to people, that had permission from the owners, to link to their site or video.
BTW:
Why is “ICE” & Home Land Security” in charge of going after “maybe” some is infringing on a copyright?
They do NOT have anything better to do, like keeping our country safe from Terrorism, Illegal entry into our country, Drugs….or have they have all this so under control, they have the time to shut down any domains or websites they
want.
BTW2: I have seen the hundreds of websites they have already shut down…and all the screw ups they have already done.
Example:
They took over 87K websites from one ISP…and posted a big banner on each of the 87k domains…saying the sites were taken down because of violation of: US Porn distribution laws….
Not a small mistake. Your selling kids books, and next thing you know…you have be “Labeled” as person in the distribution of “porn”
Not to good for businesses or your reputation.
_____
And then on has to ask WHY, over the last year, NOT one Islamic Jihad website has been taken down by “ICE” or “HLS”?
Seems to me they are a much larger threat to people and would be more of a REAL job…at least for Home Land Security to do.
Ok…
Rant over 😉
Peace,
‘D’
not the end of the inet. nor the end of its tragic effect on ip rights protected by laws suited for an analog world.
but it might expediate the end of centrally managed dns. and the end of domain names as you know them. so domainers should care about this.
dns != the internet
it’s just a convenience.
why don’t we just cut to the chase and require backbone providers and exchange points to start filtering out prefixes from certain countries. and see where that leads us. it probably wouldn’t get very far.
The way intellectual property is setup, it’s a huge downer for any kind of “variety” in the realm of innovation.
In clear, IP is a twisted way to halt innovation and overly glorify our current relative mediocrity.
All IP initiatives benefit those who can defend them and in the real world, that excludes just about everybody but the ultra-rich, which you and I aren’t part of.
This new Bill is a direct attack against free speech, free thinking and innovation. We’re living in a “prison society” where checkpoints and tolls are flaring up everywhere. This is just another lockdown on our collective mindshare, to the unilateral benefit of a creepy elite.
Hi,
@Claude Gelinas
Well said…
Best,
‘D’
I was hoping we could all play in the same sandbox.
Yes but the elite give us movies and music that we could not live without, right? It’s impossible for almost everyone to make their own movies and music, and distribute it, except for a very chosen few. LOL.
And those few would never do it unless we paid them, through the elite middlemen of course. No money, no art. That’s how it’s always been. From the beginning of recorded time.
No payment, no art.
“This new Bill is a direct attack against free speech, free thinking and innovation. We’re living in a “prison society” where checkpoints and tolls are flaring up everywhere. This is just another lockdown on our collective mindshare, to the unilateral benefit of a creepy elite.”
Welcome to the 51st State 😉 the thought police are watching you
Hi,
Just some update information today ~ Article Fox News:
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“Anti-Piracy Legislation Targets Copyrights, While Critics Say It’s a Trap to Hurt Facebook, YouTube”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/02/proposals-to-target-online-piracy-trigger-alarm-from-tech-industry/?test=latestnews#ixzz1cgLCw2aK
____
Best,
‘D’