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The new censorship bill promises to give the copyright holders all that they need in order to put a stop to internet piracy. In addition, lawmakers will introduce the PROTECT IP act. By allowing domain seizures, ISP blockades, executing search engine censorship and cutting funds of all allegedly copyright infringement websites, the new bill brings the war against piracy to a whole new level.In the past year the U.S. Government seized more than 100 domain names under accusations of copyright infringement. This censorship bill is, however, the next nightmare for any peer-to-peer website and its users. The PROTECT IP policy is going to give power a new meaning by introducing new tools to authorities and copyright holders. Those who remember the COICA proposal might easily say that this is worse than it.In its summary the bill states how piracy affects the financial flow of the industry.“Copyright infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods are reported to cost American creators and producers billions of dollars and to result in hundreds of thousands in lost jobs annually. This pervasive problem has assumed an especially threatening form on the Internet,” the bill document reads.If before PROTECT IP a seized website could still continue its activity under a new non-US based domain name this is not possible anymore as authorities have a larger scale of tools to fight.“The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (“PROTECT IP Act”) authorizes the Justice Department to file a civil action against the registrant or owner of a domain name that accesses a foreign Internet site, or the foreign-registered domain name itself, and to seek a preliminary order from the court that the site is dedicated to infringing activities,” the document continues.This means that if a website is not registered or controlled by a U.S. company, the authorities can order search engines to: remove the website from their results, demand ISPs to block the site and order ad-networks and payment processors to stop providing services.“If the court issues an order against the registrant, owner, or domain name, resulting from the DOJ-initiated suit, the Attorney General is authorized to serve that order on specified U.S. based third-parties, including Internet service providers, payment processors, online advertising network providers, and search engines. These third parties would then be required to take appropriate action to either prevent access to the Internet site, or cease doing business with the Internet site.”The bill also allows for private copyright holders to use some of the same tools as the Government. Without a due process, copyright holders can obtain a court order to prevent payment providers and ad-networks from doing business with websites that allegedly encourage copyright infringement. Unlike the DOJ, copyright holders can’t obtain orders to block sites through ISPs or search engines.An interesting fact is that no constitutional issues (which might appear) were mentioned in the summary of the act. The legislation’s interest is, however, ensured by this act. As for the accused websites, their only defense consists in a petition to suspend or vacate the order (although this, as we’ve seen, can take months). PROTECT IP is to be officially launched in the coming weeks along with details about its content. Sources close to the U.S Government say the bill has already gathered a lot of support among legislators. Is this the end of the so called free-internet as we know it ?
