Legislation seeks death penalty for web sites accused of piracy

Whether you’re a copyright holder or the owner of a web site that could be unjustly accused of copyright violation, a new piece of legislation before the U.S. Senate should be of interest to you. The “Protect IP” Act, was introduced last week and is sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (Democrat from Vermont) and a number of other high-profile senators such as Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, Lindsey Graham and Orrin Hatch. It gives the Justice Department the authority to search engines, DNS providers and Internet advertising companies to essentially “kill” a web site suspected of copyright or trademark infringement:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20062398-281.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

The Protect IP Act is basically a revised version of the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act” (COICA) that was introduced last year. You can read here about some of the differences:

http://www.openmarket.org/2011/05/13/protect-ip-act-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

And finally, you’ll find the full text of the Senate Bill here, in PDF format:

http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-PROTECTIPAct.pdf

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