Bill Would Give Justice Department Power to Shutter Piracy Sites Worldwide

[n2doc]

By David Kravets September 20, 2010 | 3:33 pm |

Lawmakers introduced legislation Monday that would let the Justice Department seek U.S. court orders against piracy websites anywhere in the world, and shut them down through the sites’ domain registration.

The bipartisan legislation, dubbed the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, (.pdf) amounts to the Holy Grail of intellectual-property enforcement. The recording industry and movie studios have been clamoring for such a capability since the George W. Bush administration. If passed, the Justice Department could ask a federal court for an injunction that would order a U.S. domain registrar or registry to stop resolving an infringing site’s domain name, so that visitors to PirateBay.org, for example, would an error.

“In today’s global economy the internet has become the glue of international commerce –- connecting consumers with a wide array of products and services worldwide,” said Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah) in a statement announcing the bill. “But it’s also become a tool for online thieves to sell counterfeit and pirated goods, making hundreds of millions of dollars off of stolen American intellectual property.”

The bill would direct injunctions at a piracy site’s domain registrar, if the registration was through a U.S. company. If not, the Justice Department could serve the court order at the registry for the site’s top-level domain. Registry’s for the dot-com, dot-net and dot-org domains are all U.S.-based, and thus within the courts’ jurisdiction. For domains not under U.S. control, the bill would demand that internet service providers in the United States block resolution of the address upon a court order, but overseas users would not be impacted.

If history is a guide, though, the bill might fail in Congress and might not even be necessary.



Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/justice-department-piracy/

[Ezlivin]

1. Next step: Shuttering sites that are "anti-American"

Once they get the power to strong-arm the registrars, then then can start shuttering any site they don't like. All they have to do is utter the magical phrase "supports terrorism" or some other such analogue.

The internet poses a big problem for the powers-that-be.

A little too much freedom is a bad thing, you see.

[el_bryanto]

2. What are the downsides to this bill

Other than it will be harder to steal music and movies?

Bryant

[MattBaggins]

3. WikiLeaks

[piratefish08]

4. yup

[Greyhound]

5. In the long run it would finally get the internet backbone out of the U.S. which would be terrible

for us but good for the world. Sovereign nations do not like to be dictated to by bullies (see the Pirate Bay case).