Protect IP Bill Approved by Senate Judiciary Committee [US Senate Panel Approves Controversial Bill That Intends to Target Piracy from Overseas]

Posted on TFTS by J. Angelo Racoma on Friday, 27. May 2011 under: Internet Highlights, News in Brief

The US Senate’s Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved a bill that will target intellectual property infringers by essentially killing their websites.

Protect IP Act

The bill, currently being processed by the US senate, will empower courts of law to order search engines, DNS servers and ISPs to essentially kill services that infringe on intellectual property or copyright by denying access to these websites. Dubbed the Protect IP Act, the aim of the proposed law is to give enforcement agencies better capabilities at actually targeting software, music and movie pirates, even ones that are physically located overseas. By denying DNS access, visibility in search listings, advertisements, and financial services, their entire business model is essentially killed off.

Some critics, such as Google’s Eric Schmidt, have said the bill was tantamount to a threat to the freedom of speech. He says Google will continue to fight against the Protect IP bill even if (or when) it has been enacted already. Of course, the bill also has opposition within the US Senate itself, although it seems to have a lot of supporters within the legislature.

tuxedocat
What I want to know, is how this threatens free speech? They keep saying that it does, but examples of “how” are never provided. Seems like a “talking point” to me.
Tell the little book author whose publisher just dumped her because of low sales. If her book had sold half the amount of FREE! e-book compatible illegal downloads of her book located on Chinese servers, she would have made the NYT bestseller list! Instead, she gives up writing and goes back to an office job. Still she gets e-mails asking when her next book will be available for free download, – and then they get mad at her when she tells them she had to quit writing because too many people downloaded her book for free. I guess her “free speech” and “creativity” have been violated! Just the other way around. Talking point THAT.
Domingo
Yes, and this is the kind of action that will draw the wrath of every pissed of hacker and script kiddie on the internet. They thought the attacks of Anon and LulzSec were bad before. Once the government starts killing off sites they don’t approve of, the war will escalate.