NEWS Opposition says SOPA should stop right now


ability of pirates to profit from theſt, has to be “done with a fine touch”.


“As it now stands, however, [the legislation] could sweep in more than just truly egregious actors. To fix this problem, definitions of who can be the subject of legal actions and what remedies are imposed must be tightened and narrowed.”


Google copyright policy counsel Katherine Oyama testified at the hearing. She called the legislation “overly broad” and said that it would undermine the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by sweeping in “innocent websites that have violated no law” and imposing “harsh and arbitrary sanctions without due process”.


Te Business Soſtware Alliance (BSA) and a host of technology companies including Google, Mozilla, eBay and Twitter have voiced their concerns that the recently introduced US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) could threaten Internet companies and innovation.


A bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives introduced the new IP legislation in October 2011.


Te group wants to allow the Attorney General to seek injunctions against foreign websites that profit from piracy and counterfeiting, to increase criminal penalties for traffickers of counterfeit medicine and military goods, and to improve co-ordination between IP enforcement agencies in the US.


Twelve politicians sponsored the legislation, including House Judiciary Committee chairman


Lamar Smith and IP Subcommittee chairman Bob Goodlatte.


In a statement, Goodlatte said: “American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current US laws. Tis legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives … remain effective in the 21st Century’s global marketplace.”


On hearing the news, BSA president and chief executive officer Robert Holleyman said in a statement that the bipartisan group has “taken a good step by introducing legislation to address the problem of online piracy”.


However, Holleyman said in a blog post aſter attending a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in November 2011 that the idea behind the legislation, which is to remove the


UK music chiefs test The Pirate Bay waters


Internet service provider (ISP) British Telecom (BT) has refused to block the world’s “most resilient” file-sharing website aſter a written request to do so from UK music trade body the BPI.


Te BPI wanted BT to use its CleanFeed technology, which BT uses to block child pornography, to block BT subscriber access to Te Pirate Bay because it is widely regarded as a platform that enables users to share copyrighted works without consent.


But BT refused to do this without a court order similar to the one obtained in the Newzbin case in July 2011.


UK High Court Justice Richard Arnold ruled that BT had to be aware that some of its subscribers


www.worldipreview.com


were using the Newzbin website to infringe copyright on a large scale and ordered it block access to the file-sharing website.


Te BPI wanted to side-step the courts by getting BT to block Te Pirate Bay voluntarily, but it was unsuccessful.


A BT spokesperson said: “BT has responded to the letter from the BPI requesting that BT block The Pirate Bay site. BT has confirmed that, in line with the Newzbin judgment, a court order will be needed before any blocking could begin.”


Te BPI has received BT’s response. Its spokesperson said: “We have also written to Britain’s other major ISPs—O2, Orange, Sky,


TalkTalk and Virgin Media—asking them to block access to Te Pirate Bay and will await their responses. In the meantime, we are engaging in further dialogue with BT on the matter.”


ISPs from other jurisdictions are blocking domains associated with Te Pirate Bay. A Belgian court recently ordered ISPs to block subscriber access to 11 domains associated with Te Pirate Bay or face fines.


A blog post at www.thepiratebay.org issued a response to this news. It said “Yawn. When will they give up—we’re still growing despite (or perhaps because of ) all their efforts.”


Te blog post then offered users several ways of circumventing any blocks. n


Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 1 9


Aol, eBay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo! and Zynga Game Network wrote to the US Congress in November 2011 to express their concerns about the legislation.


Te group said it was particularly concerned that the legislation would “seriously undermine” the DMCA’s safe harbour for Internet companies that act in good faith to remove infringing content from their sites.


Responding to Google’s objections, House Judiciary Committee chairman Smith said in a statement that the objections “should come as no surprise”, as Google had recently settled a federal criminal investigation into the company’s active promotion of rogue websites that sell illegal prescription and counterfeit drugs.


He added: “Given Google’s record, their objection to authorizing a court to order a search engine to not steer consumers to foreign rogue sites is more easily understood.” n


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