Ron Wyden: Puts Hold On PROTECT IP, Temporarily Withdraws Amendment On The PATRIOT Act

from the busy-day dept

Well, here's an update to two separate stories from this morning. First, Senator Ron Wyden, who has been speaking out against the secret interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, which allowed the feds to do much more than the law seemed to allow, has apparently agreed to withdraw his amendment, after the Senate leadership promised that Wyden can hold hearings on the secret interpretation. If he is not satisfied with the results of those hearings, he can (and, I assume, will) reintroduce his amendment (with Senator Mark Udall) to require that the federal government make public its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act. This is not ideal, but it's better than nothing.

Separately, in response to the news that the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved PROTECT IP, Senator Wyden has done what he did with COICA and put a hold on the bill, effectively blocking it for the time being. This is good news, as hopefully it will force those pushing the law to address the massive problems with the law. Here is Senator Wyden's statement:

Consistent with Senate Standing Orders and my policy of publishing in the Congressional Record a statement whenever I place a hold on legislation, I am announcing my intention to object to any unanimous consent request to proceed to S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act.

In December of last year I placed a hold on similar legislation, commonly called COICA, because I felt the costs of the legislation far outweighed the benefits. After careful analysis of the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, I am compelled to draw the same conclusion. I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective. At the expense of legitimate commerce, PIPA's prescription takes an overreaching approach to policing the Internet when a more balanced and targeted approach would be more effective. The collateral damage of this approach is speech, innovation and the very integrity of the Internet.

The Internet represents the shipping lane of the 21st century. It is increasingly in America's economic interest to ensure that the Internet is a viable means for American innovation, commerce, and the advancement of our ideals that empower people all around the world. By ceding control of the Internet to corporations through a private right of action, and to government agencies that do not sufficiently understand and value the Internet, PIPA represents a threat to our economic future and to our international objectives. Until the many issues that I and others have raised with this legislation are addressed, I will object to a unanimous consent request to proceed to the legislation.

Filed Under: patriot act, protect ip, ron wyden

The 18 Senators Who Approve Breaking The Internet To Protect Hollywood

from the not-cool dept

Last fall, we noted that the Senate Judiciary Committee had unanimously voted to approve COICA, a bill for censoring the internet as a favor to the entertainment industry. Thankfully, Senator Ron Wyden stepped up and blocked COICA from progressing. This year, COICA has been replaced by the PROTECT IP Act, which fixes some of the problems of COICA, but introduces significant other problems as well. A wide cross section of people who actually understand technology and innovation have come out against PROTECT IP as written -- including librarians, human rights groups, public interest groups (pdf) and various technology groups (pdf), including CEA, CCIA and NetCoalition. Most significantly, a group of internet/DNS specialists have made a strong case that this would break the internet in significant ways:

• The U.S. Government and private industry have identified Internet security and stability as a key part of a wider cyber security strategy, and if implemented, the DNS related provisions of PROTECT IP would weaken this important commitment. DNS filters would be evaded easily, and would likely prove ineffective at reducing online infringement. Further, widespread circumvention would threaten the security and stability of the global DNS.
• The DNS provisions would undermine the universality of domain names, which has been one of the key enablers of the innovation, economic growth, and improvements in communications and information access unleashed by the global Internet.
• Migration away from ISP-provided DNS servers would harm efforts that rely on DNS data to detect and mitigate security threats and improve network performance.
• Dependencies within the DNS would pose significant risk of collateral damage, with filtering of one domain potentially affecting users' ability to reach non-infringing Internet content.
• The site redirection envisioned in Section 3(d)(II)(A)(ii) is inconsistent with security extensions to the DNS that are known as DNSSEC.
• The U.S. Government and private industry have identified DNSSEC as a key part of a wider cyber security strategy, and many private, military, and governmental networks have invested in DNSSEC technologies.
• If implemented, this section of the PROTECT IP Act would weaken this important effort to improve Internet security. It would enshrine and institutionalize the very network manipulation that DNSSEC must fight in order to prevent cyberattacks and other malevolent behavior on the global Internet, thereby exposing networks and users to increased security and privacy risks.

So, with the people who actually understand this stuff pointing out that PROTECT IP would break the internet and go against various stated important priorities for the internet, you would think that the Senate Judiciary Committee might hold off before moving forward with such a poorly thought out bill.

But, you know, the Hollywood lobbyists want it. So, let's just ignore the people who actually understand this stuff and give Hollywood what they want.

This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to move forward with PROTECT IP as is. It seems only fair to once again name the Senators who just voted (with a voice vote) to break the internet. Here's your list of technologically ignorant lawmakers of the day:

• Patrick J. Leahy -- Vermont
• Herb Kohl -- Wisconsin
• Jeff Sessions -- Alabama
• Dianne Feinstein -- California
• Orrin G. Hatch -- Utah
• Richard Blumenthal -- Connecticut
• Chuck Grassley -- Iowa
• Michael Lee -- Utah
• Jon Kyl -- Arizona
• Chuck Schumer -- New York
• Lindsey Graham -- South Carolina
• Dick Durbin -- Illinois
• John Cornyn -- Texas
• Tom Coburn -- Oklahoma
• Sheldon Whitehouse -- Rhode Island
• Amy Klobuchar -- Minnesota
• Al Franken -- Minnesota
• Chris Coons -- Delaware

Update: Oops. Pulled last year's list. Just corrected, removing Feingold, Specter and Cardin and adding in Lee and Blumenthal. Sorry, that was a dumb mistake.

Filed Under: dns, protect ip, senate

Senator Leahy Supports Bringing Drugs In From Canada... And Also Banning Such Sites From The Internet

from the confused-isn't-he? dept

In the latest bit of evidence that Senator Patrick Leahy, who is the official sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act, doesn't even understand what it is he's proposing, the folks over at DemandProgress are pointing out a massive contradiction in two separate bills that Leahy has introduced. First, of course, we have the PROTECT IP Act, which pharmacies like Eli Lilly are cheering on because they know that it can be used to block access to foreign online pharmacies (mainly in Canada) that Americans frequently use for parallel import or re-importation of drugs at more reasonable prices. Of course, Eli Lilly won't come out and say that directly, but the fact that they hype up the key point that this bill will encourage search engines and others to take "voluntary action" makes it pretty clear that this is what they likely mean.

No one denies that actual fake drugs are a real danger. But too many in both the pharma industry and among our politicians never separate out fake (and often dangerous) drugs from either generics or parallel import drugs that are just as effective, but often much, much cheaper. While government officials will insist up and down that their only concern is with the actual fake drugs, what's noticeably missing from this bit of legislation is anything that makes that point clear -- meaning that search engines and others who don't necessarily understand the difference may feel pressured to block those legit online pharmacies. Which, of course, would make the big pharma firms like Eli Lilly quite happy.

So what's the contradiction? Well, at the same time that Leahy is sponsoring the PROTECT IP Act, he's also a co-sponsor of the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act which is designed to expand the ability of Americans to import cheaper drugs from elsewhere. Yup, so just as he's sponsoring a bill to allow more people to get cheaper drugs from Canada, he's also sponsoring a bill that will make that much, much harder.

Filed Under: canada, drugs, parallel import, patrick leahy, protect ip, reimportation

Universal Music: We Need PROTECT IP Because Musicians Are Dying!

from the hyperbole-much? dept

Last summer, we pointed out that Universal Music Group Distribution President Jim Urie had sent out a letter on behalf of MusicRightsNow -- a laughable astroturf group that pretends to support musicians, but is a front for major label and legacy industry interests, asking people to submit letters to Congress in support of a new law against online infringement. At the time, we had thought it was a push for a three strikes law, but it was really just pre-COICA posturing (showing, of course, that the major labels knew all about COICA before the rest of us did). Once COICA was out, Urie sent out another such letter, and followed it up with one more right before COICA was set to be up for a vote (before Ron Wyden thankfully blocked it).

With PROTECT IP being the reincarnation of COICA, it should be no surprise that Urie has sent out yet another such plea letter, asking people to alert their Congressional representatives of why they should support PROTECT IP. Just as with the past letters, if you follow the link in Urie's letter, it takes you to a website where the letter is static. There is no way to edit it. In fact, the site claims that the text is required. Yup. It's "required" that you leave the letter intact. There is no way to express your own opinion at all. You may only parrot Jim Urie and Universal Music's position on PROTECT IP.

Doesn't it seem somewhat ironic, for an industry that talks up the importance of individual creativity and not copying others, that it only wants you to copy the letter they've pre-written?

So what does the static letter say? After kicking off with a rather false offer to "compose message," when you can't do any composing, it offers the following required text:

My livelihood depends upon a healthy music industry – and that’s why I hope you will support S. 968, legislation to protect Intellectual Property and encourage action against online theft.

Lots of people's livelihood depends on a healthy music industry, but S. 968 doesn't do anything to create a healthy music industry. As plenty of studies have shown over and over again, there exists a very healthy music industry today -- more healthy than before the internet came along. What's unhealthy is the part of the business Urie is in charge of leading: the part that's about selling recordings. Just because Urie failed to lead Universal Music into the modern world, it doesn't mean we need a law designed to break the internet to cover up for his failings.

And, seriously, can we stop calling infringement theft?

The online theft of music is killing artists, singers, songwriters, musicians, retailers, production engineers and others. It is destroying jobs, dreams and careers. The music community is at risk, as is the unique culture of American music itself.

Yes. Read that again. He doesn't say that it's killing their careers (even though it's not). He literally says that it's KILLING THEM. Talk about ridiculous hyperbole. Even if they really just meant that it's killing their careers, this is flat out wrong. Over and over again we've shown that more and more people are making music and making money from music than ever before. The music community is not at risk and neither is the culture of American music. What's at risk is Jim Urie's job. For shame. Probably should have adapted to a changing market. Pleading to Congress by lying about dying musicians is a desperation play, but won't save your job, Jim.

Despite an astounding array of legal and convenient ways to obtain digital music today, online theft continues. Of course, music is just the “canary in the coal mine” – books, movies, television programs, games and software are suffering damage that will grow more profound if left unchecked.

And yet, there is no evidence that stopping infringement leads to more purchases. You know what would lead to more purchases? Adapting to a changing market. It's a shame, then, that Urie and Universal Music is unwilling to do so.

S. 968 would provide law enforcement with new tools to stop criminals engaged in piracy and counterfeiting online. I urge you to support this legislation and any other efforts designed to assist our nation’s creative community.

S.968 would provide law enforcement and Universal Music with new tools to stifle speech, attack innovations and generally hold back progress hopefully for long enough until Jim Urie can retire. What it won't do is stop "criminals." It certainly won't assist our nation's creative community. Our nation's creative community (the truly creative ones) have learned how to embrace new forms of distribution and new business models and will actually be held back by laws like this.

Anyway, we eagerly await the evidence Jim Urie has of musicians deaths from infringement.

Filed Under: hyperbole, jim urie, protect ip
Companies: music rights now, universal music

Being Concerned With Free Speech Implications Of PROTECT IP Does Not Mean You Think You're Above The Law

from the oh-come-on dept

Wow. In the legacy entertainment industry's latest "you're either with us or against us" mentality, it appears that expressing concern about the free speech implications of bills like PROTECT IP means you're a horrible, horrible person. Both the MPAA and RIAA are quite upset about Eric Schmidt coming out against PROTECT IP and saying that the impact on free speech would be disastrous. Both responses are so sickeningly disingenuous, it really makes you wonder how out of touch they are.

Let's start with the RIAA's statement:

"This is baffling. As a legitimate company, Google has a responsibility to not benefit from criminal activity. In substance and spirit, this contradicts the recent testimony of Google's General Counsel that the company takes copyright theft seriously and was willing to step up to the plate in a cooperative and serious way."

Um. Except that nothing in what Schmidt said actually contradicted Kent Walkers speech, nor did he say they don't take copyright infringement (not theft guys) seriously. He was expressing very legitimate concerns about the free speech implications.

On to the MPAA's statement, which echoes the RIAAs, but is a little more fleshed out:

In April, Google senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker testified before Congress that 'Google supports developing effective policy and technology tools to combat large-scale commercial infringement.' That’s exactly what the PROTECT IP Act is designed to do -- it creates a narrowly-drawn, carefully constructed solution to the threat to American jobs and America's economy, a solution that protects and strengthens our right to free speech. As constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams wrote, '[c]opyright violations are not protected by the First Amendment.'

This is really shameful how the MPAA twists the debate. First of all, the PROTECT IP does not effectively combat large-scale commercial infringement at all. That's just wishful thinking. The actual infringement will continue. Second, there is no evidence that it will support American jobs or the economy. In fact, the reverse is almost certainly true, as these kinds of laws will harm large parts of the internet that enable new jobs.

But the really sickening part is the Floyd Abrams quote. While it is entirely true that copyright violation is not protected by the First Amendment that's not what Schmidt or anyone else raising these issues are concerned about. No one -- not Schmidt, not us -- is arguing that copyright infringement is protected by the First Amendment. We're saying that this tool will be used against non-infringing and perfectly legal speech. And that's not a theoretical concern. We've already seen it happen multiple times with the existing ICE domain seizures, in which blogs and sites that were not violating the law were seized.

That's the concern.

Furthermore, as Schmidt made clear in his statement, he was also noting that once you justify the censorship of some speech just because you're trying to stop infringement, you open the door to much more censorship of speech. Traditionally, the First Amendment caselaw has been clear: if you're going to strike against illegal speech, you have to very narrowly focus on just that speech. PROTECT IP does not do that. It casts a wide net. But, once you have that door open, saying that it's okay to shut down some legitimate speech in an effort to stop some others, that will only expand.

Is Eric Schmidt really suggesting that if Congress passes a law and President Obama signs it, Google wouldn’t follow it? As an American company respected around the world, it’s unfortunate that, at least according to its executive chairman’s comments, Google seems to think it’s above America’s laws.

Oh, come on! Of course that's not what Schmidt is saying and the MPAA is being obnoxiously disingenuous in suggesting otherwise. He's not saying they're "above America's laws." He says that the RIAA/MPAA-written laws should not be above the Constitution. That is, these laws should not violate the First (or in other cases the Fourth) Amendment. By saying that Google would fight, he doesn't mean ignore, he means challenging the Constitutionality of these laws in court.

Sad that the MPAA has so little actual substance behind its arguments that it's forced to blatantly mislead like that. Typical, but sad.

Filed Under: copyright, eric schmidt, free speech, protect ip
Companies: google, mpaa, riaa

Google Points Out That PROTECT IP Would Be A 'Disastrous Precedent' For Free Speech

from the good-for-google dept

While there have been a a couple of politicians speaking out against the very questionable PROTECT IP Act, we hadn't heard much from various companies that would be seriously impacted by the law. Thankfully, they're starting to speak up, starting with Google. Eric Schmidt warned that passing PROTECT IP would set a "disastrous precedent" for free speech, and that Google would fight against it passing, and suggested the company would fight the law in court if it did pass:

"I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems," he said. "So, 'let's whack off the DNS'. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say 'I don't like free speech so I'll whack off all those DNSs' -- that country would be China.

"It doesn't seem right. I would be very, very careful about that stuff. If [the UK government] do it the wrong way it could have disastrous precedent setting in other areas."

Of course, the problem here is that those in favor of PROTECT IP don't seem to understand the technology that they're regulating. So they don't realize that they're trying to create a "simple solution to complex problems," and don't recognize that they're effectively breaking the internet and infringing on free speech rights. It's not because they don't like free speech. It's because they don't understand what they're doing, and lobbyists for the entertainment industry insist this is needed to "fight piracy." The problem is that this won't "fight piracy" and will have massive unintended consequences. It's good that Google is willing to make this an issue.

Filed Under: eric schmidt, free speech, protect ip
Companies: google

The PROTECT IP Act Is About The Old Media Industry Going To War With The Internet

from the nicely-put dept

Larry Downes, author of the book, The Laws of Disruption, has an excellent (if lengthy) column discussing why the PROTECT IP Act is about the legacy media industry going to war with the internet:

It is now clear that the true enemy of traditional media, still unbloodied, is the Internet itself. The remarkable ability of digital technology to reduce the transaction costs of information exchanges of all kinds has destroyed the business models, if not the businesses, on which content providers have operated successfully since at least the 18th century. That’s when the first copyright law was passed in England.

The focus on "media" in the very name of the industry belies its reliance on the limited life of physical copies as the key control mechanism. But as physical copies are replaced by faster, better, and cheaper digital alternatives, control becomes more illusory. The entrenched providers are growing desperate.

A full-scale war between content distributors and everyone else has been raging in earnest for over a decade. Both sides have seen theirs share of victories, defeats, and casualties--some in the market, others in the courts. Like many messy conflicts, it has dragged in many once-neutral parties, including device manufacturers, network operators, and consumers.

He goes on to note that what this and other recent attempts to change copyright law in favor of those industries are really attempts to break the internet in order to protect some old business models. Yet, because we believe in free speech, we can't just completely stop the spread of content online, and so the silly set of laws we keep seeing are really attempts to take convoluted paths to break the internet, while being able to pretend they're just trying to stop "criminals." The real problem, however, is that these laws are being driven by the industries they help the most, and being passed by elected officials who don't understand what they're doing to the internet:

There's more, but let's cut through the unpleasant details here for a moment. In essence, what PRO IP, COICA, and now Protect IP all try to do is disrupt sites that infringe copyright and trademark without removing them, largely in cases where actually taking them down is both legally and technically impossible.

Their attenuated tactics, taken together, try to effect the removal of the site from the Internet when law enforcement can’t easily exercise jurisdiction over the site itself or the people who operate it. Doing so, of course, leaves the actual site and those who operate it untouched, free to use their own tactics to avoid erasure or simply reappear nearby. And it requires the forced conscription of a dizzying jumble of Internet service providers, some large and some very small.

But the more indirect the solutions, the more the technical integrity of the Internet--its openness, its least common denominator protocols--is compromised. It may ultimately break. In an effort to disrupt illegal uses of technology, these laws may succeed only when they unintentionally disrupt all uses, legal and illegal.

How did we get so quickly to the brink, where Congress is wading so deeply into technical details it clearly doesn't understand? Why are the combatants in this war willing to resort to increasingly incomplete, ineffective and dangerous tactics? (Dangerous to the infrastructure, to the law, and otherwise.)

Law is often the last refuge of an industry in transition. Rather than change, or change as quickly as innovation makes possible, industry incumbents sue, first to slow the pace of progress and then, ultimately, simply to survive.

The full article is a lot longer, but really does a great job framing the entire argument that shows what's really at stake: an old industry that's being disrupted, and which is seeking (whether consciously or not -- and I'd actually argue that they don't realize what they're doing) to break the internet, because it upsets the ways they used to make money. What's unfortunate, is that politicians don't recognize that they're merely helping to prop up an unnecessary legacy industry, when there are plenty of new, better, more efficient operations able to take their place instead.

Filed Under: disruption, intellectual property, old media, protect ip

Senator Wyden & Zoe Lofgren Not Impressed By PROTECT IP Or Feds' Responses To Questions About Domain Seizures

from the isn't-that-always-the-case dept

The two elected officials we've seen push back the most on plans like COICA are Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Zoe Lofgren. So, it should come as little surprise that the two of them have released a statement saying that the answers the government gave Wyden after he asked some questions about the domain seizures were were insufficient. I particularly like Senator Wyden highlighting the government's complete failure to explain how linking is infringement:

“Particularly troubling is their refusal to explain how linking is different than free speech. Given that hyperlinks in many ways form the foundation of the Internet, efforts to go after one site for linking to another site – which the Administration is currently doing and the Protect IP Act would expand on – threaten to do much more than protect IP. There are many actions that we can all agree the Administration can and should be taking to crack down on counterfeiting of U.S. goods and the illegal sale of U.S. IP products that don’t involve advancing novel and unsupportable theories like holding sites liable for linking.”

It's really unfortunate that it appears there's only one Senator and one Congressional Rep who seem willing to actually push back against these abuses of free speech rights, but kudos to Wyden and Lofgren for standing up for pesky little things like the First Amendment.

Filed Under: copyright, domain seizures, free speech, linking, protect ip, ron wyden, zoe lofgren

The Senators Who Say Merely Linking To Certain Sites Should Be A Felony

from the oh-come-on dept

I wrote earlier about how the new PROTECT IP Act guts parts of the DMCA, but as you dig deeper, it's looking even worse. The original (and now updated) article focused on the use of the term "interactive computer service," which was in a draft copy of the bill. At the last minute, that was changed instead to be "information location tool." While, at first, this may seem to be a narrower definition, there are some serious concerns that this effectively makes it illegal to link to any website that is accused of being "dedicated to infringing purposes." That's because an "information location tool" is defined under current law to be: a "directory, index, reference, pointer, or hypertext link."

Yes, you read that correctly: a link is an "information location tool" and such tools may be barred from pointing to sites deemed "dedicated to infringing" purposes. That seems like a massive breach of the First Amendment. If there is relevant information, as someone covering the news, why should I be prevented from linking?

Making matters even worse is a companion bill introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar, John Cornyn and Christopher Coons, which would ratchet up charges for sites that stream infringing works to a felony. The specific text of the bill is not yet public, and it's likely that it just extends the "public performance" rights to section 506a of the Copyright Act (which only covers distribution and reproduction rights today). But, that leaves open a huge question of what is considered a "public performance" and how you define "streaming" in relation to a public performance. I can see it reasonably applying to a site hosting the content and streaming it... but what about an embed or a link, in which the content never touches the site in question at all? Tragically, we've already seen that the feds consider merely linking or embedding to be a form of a felony -- so it appears this bill is designed to make that even clearer, and that is really dangerous.

Put it all together, and our elected officials are now claiming that linking to something can be a felony. Yeah. Scary.

It seems that we really should highlight the list of Senators who have sponsored these bills, and who are telling you that linking to content should be considered a felony. The first bill is sponsored by:

• Patrick Leahy
• Orrin Hatch
• Chuck Grassley
• Charles Schumer
• Dianne Feinstein
• Sheldon Whitehouse
• Lindsey Graham
• Herb Kohl
• Chris Coons
• Richard Blumenthal
• Al Franken <-- Updated to include, missed him on the first pass

The latter bill is

• Amy Klobuchar
• John Cornyn
• Chris Coons, who has the distinction of sponsoring both dreadful bills

So, there you go. The Senators who think it's okay for the government to put people in jail for linking.

Filed Under: felony, infringement, linking, protect ip

PROTECT IP Would Gut Parts Of The DMCA's Safe Harbors [Updated]

from the don't-let-that-happen dept

We've been covering the newly released "son of COICA" censorship bill, now renamed the PROTECT IP Act, this week, breaking the news of the summary version of the law as well as posting the full text. However, as people dig deeper into the text, it looks worse and worse. In fact, I have to apologize, because I think I got fooled by the summary text into believing the actual text of the bill wasn't as bad as it turns out to be.

Sherwin Siy, over at Public Knowledge, points out that the part that we'd been highlighting as applying to "search engines" actually is not about just search engines, but applies extremely broadly to "interactive computer services," a phrase that the courts have treated quite broadly for years. Update: Apparently the "interactive computer service" phrase was in a draft of the bill, but then was switched out for "information location tool" in the final version. However, there are still serious concerns about the loss of DMCA safe harbor provisions...

The real issue here is that it seems to eliminate some of the important safe harbors provided by the DMCA. It kind of makes you wonder if that was the purpose of this bill all along. The entertainment industry has been whining for a while about how the DMCA's safe harbors need to go, and have test marketed that line of argument a few times, only to see major push-back. It's beginning to look like they decided to use the PROTECT IP Act to undo the DMCA's safe harbors with a bit of misdirection. First, they got people to focus on the issues from COICA (seizing sites, etc.) and then with the "summary" they turned the debate into it being about search engines, rather than all interactive service providers.

Updated: To clarify with the update above, the target isn't quite as broad due to the last minute change in the phrasing, but there's still a significant threat to the DMCA safe harbors. That's because while the new act says that it shouldn't impact the DMCA, the actual wording of the bill suggests otherwise. Specifically, the bill notes that "nothing in this Act" and "no order issued" can be used as evidence to knock out a safe harbor, but that leaves a massive loophole: allegations about the sites can still be used as evidence for "red flag" violations under the DMCA. So, for example, a rightsholder could use the PROTECT IP Act to make allegations against a site, and then claim that service providers now have red flag knowledge. It wouldn't be exempted because the Act only exempts actual court orders or the Act itself... the allegations are not exempted, and could be claimed as a sign of infringement, upon which service providers would be expected to act.

That makes this law significantly worse than COICA. It's a full on attack on the basic proper application of liability, and seeks to impose liability on third parties where it doesn't belong.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, protect ip, safe harbors