Internet censorship one step closer to law

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to pass the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), moving the legislation one step closer to reality, reports ReadWriteWeb. The law would give the U.S. Attorney General’s office the right to shut down websites that it deems are participating in piracy and “infringing activities” without due process or proof that a copyright “crime” has been committed. The law would allow the government to blacklist a website that had “no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than” sharing unauthorized copyrighted material. Sites would be blacklisted from the Domain Name System, credit card companies would be forbidden to process payments, and advertisers would be banned from placing ads on the site. Techdirt has the list of the Senators involved in today’s vote, and notes that, “What’s really amazing is that many of the same Senators have been speaking out against internet censorship in other countries, yet they happily vote to approve it here because it’s seen as a way to make many of their largest campaign contributors happy.”

The proposed legislation is supported by groups like the RIAA, MPAA, and Screen Actors Guild. But many free speech advocates see the move as a violation of the First Amendment and dangerous first step down the road to censorship. The EFF responded to this morning’s vote saying that it is “deeply disappointed to report that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the COICA internet censorship bill this morning, despite bipartisan opposition, and countless experts pointing out how it would be ineffective, unconstitutional, bad for innovation and the tech economy, and would break the internet.”

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Lawsuits resume against illegal file sharers

Suing people for illegal file sharing appears to have made a comeback, CNET reports—although now it’s smaller studios that are the plaintiffs. News that Voltage Pictures, producers of the Oscar-winning film “The Hurt Locker,” filed a federal copyright complaint last week against 5,000 alleged file sharers caught many in the file-sharing community off guard. Hadn’t the film and music industries dumped a litigation strategy in favor of a much more subtle approach, one that didn’t drag fans into court where they stood to lose thousands of dollars? It’s true, the trade groups for the major players in both these sectors, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, gave up suing file sharers. For the past couple years, they’ve tried to persuade internet service providers to suspend service to first-time copyright offenders—and though they don’t like talking about it much, the MPAA and RIAA would like chronic abusers to be permanently booted off the networks. None of this, however, would happen without the accused receiving plenty of warning. But the latest round of lawsuits isn’t being brought by gargantuan entertainment conglomerates, with their legions of lawyers and deep pools of cash. Instead, a dozen or so little-known film companies, with far fewer resources than the big studios, have mounted their own legal challenge to file sharing. And these guys appear to be playing by their own rules: In a few short months, they’ve filed lawsuits against a combined 50,000 people. The RIAA in five years filed complaints against fewer than 40,000…

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Warner Bros. recruiting students to spy on illegal file sharers

Warner Bros. Entertainment UK is providing internships to students in the United Kingdom with a computer or IT-related related degree to help the company reduce online piracy—in part by spying on their fellow students, ZDNet reports. The internships pay 17,500 pounds a year (around $26,000), and a notice of the opportunity was posted at the University of Manchester. Warner Bros. says it will give participating students the tools, knowledge, and training to search the internet for links, posts, torrents, and information that will help the company issue cease-and-desist notices and other legal means to remove pirated content. The job description says students would be asked to “monitor local internet forums and IRC [channels] for pirated Warner Bros. … content in order to gather information on pirate sites, groups, and activities,” among other responsibilities…

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