A battle has intensified over federal rules to prevent online piracy, with Hollywood, Web site operators and engineers clamoring to influence the outcome of a Senate bill.
In one corner, the U.S. Chamber, Hollywood and artists support Senator Patrick Leahy’s (D-Vt.) bill that allows attorneys general and the Justice Department to shut down the domain names of the worst of worst offenders of copyright laws. They say companies are losing revenue from pirated movies, shows, handbags and pharmaceuticals that directly trickle down to job cuts and turmoil in their sectors.
In the other corner, public interest groups and some network engineers say Leahy’s bill, which has a slew of bipartisan co-signers, allows the federal government to overreach and could lead to censorship of the Web. They say by seizing domain names, the basic infrastructure of the Internet is disrupted.
“There is an epidemic of digital theft on broadband Internet,” said Rick Cotton, general counsel for NBC Universal and chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce cross-sector Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy. “This bill is actually quite a narrow, focused effort to address a portion of that epidemic.”
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