M+E Daily

Courts would be able to order Internet service providers to block consumer access to file-sharing websites and others “dedicated to infringing activities,” as part of the government’s latest proposal to counter online copyright infringement.

The “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act,” introduced in the Senate Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and senior Republican member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would give power to the U.S. Attorney General to secure court orders directing Internet service providers to block access to domain names.  Under the proposal, the federal government would be able to file “in rem” actions against domestic domain names as well as sites registered abroad.

Like any other proposed legislation, the bill has a ways to go before it comes a law. But Washington’s entertainment lobbies praise the new bipartisan effort.

“This bill is a welcome first step toward cutting off the financial lifeline that sustains these illegal operations and threatens the livelihoods of countless members of the American music community,” says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol. “While improvements can be made to strengthen its effectiveness, this legislation is a good start.”

The bill has drawn criticism too. Advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation warn that the government’s anti-piracy net would be so wide that it would ensnare “an enormous amount of noninfringing content” as well. Others argue that the legislation might constitute a misuse of federal resources.

Wired points out that in 2008, President George W. Bush threatened to veto the legislation that created the nation’s first copyright czar unless Congress removed similar (and less expansive) powers as those Leahy and other senators are proposing now.

The Bush administration argued that delegating infringement suits to the Attorney General “could result in Department of Justice prosecutors serving as pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders regardless of their resources. In effect, taxpayer-supported department lawyers would pursue lawsuits for copyright holders, with monetary recovery going to industry.”

In some respects, online copyright infringement has only proliferated since President Bush signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act into law in late 2008.

The new Senate bill comes as television and film studios grapple with the advent of unauthorized streaming services on file-sharing sites. In a spotlight on what it calls a rapidly growing problem, the Los Angeles Times quotes an unnamed measurement service as stating that some 1.25 million people watched the season finale of HBO’s “True Blood” via unauthorized streams.