The Authors Guild really doesn't like piracy. Guild president Scott Turow, a best-selling author of legal thrillers, today summoned his powers to tell Congress:
- "BitTorrent is to stealing movies, TV shows, music, videogames, and now books what bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles."
- "It’s as if shopkeepers in some strange land were compelled to operate with wide-open side doors that would-be customers can sneak out of with impunity, arms laden with goods. In that bizarre place, an ever-growing array of businesses that profit only if the side exit is used eagerly assist the would-be customers, leaving the shopkeeper with only one thing to offer paying customers: the dignity of exiting through the front door."
- "Piracy has all but dismantled our recorded music industry. Any business plan in the music industry must now take into account that piracy is the rule, not the exception."
- "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's 'safe harbor' for online service providers has turned out to be an exploitable gold mine for unscrupulous online enterprises."
And Turow was just one of five speakers offering testimony.
Going rogue
Today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was all about COICA, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act. The bill would give the government legal tools to blacklist a "rogue" website from the Internet's Domain Name System, ban credit card companies from processing US payments to the site, and forbid US-based online ad networks from working with the site. It even directs the government to keep a list of suspect sites, even though no evidence has been presented against them in court.
Everyone loves the idea. Democrats love the idea (well, except for Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who said it was "like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb when what you really need is a precision-guided missile"). Republicans love the idea. And rightsholders really love the idea.
In fact, they have a few suggestions of their own. Turow wants to cripple the "safe harbors" that protect ISPs and websites from liability in the actions of their users. One of his improvements to COICA would "remove the DMCA safe harbors for online and Internet service providers that provide routine access to online file-sharing service providers that have not registered an agent for service of process for copyright infringement actions and for which the Copyright Office has received at least 50 DMCA take-down notices."