A federal judge has denied the Spanish company Peurto 80’s motion to release the domains rojadirectica.com and rojadirectica.org, seized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Operation In Our Sites. The seized websites included links to third party websites which…
The Motion Picture Association of America has announced eleven different letters in support of the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (S.968 – the ‘PROTECT-IP Act). The legislation allow the Justice Department to…
Google has released a new “Transparency Report” which presents country-level data on the number of takedown requests and requests for identities of users that Google received from governments between July and December of 2010. The report also contains data on…
A Spanish company that owns two domains seized by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has petitioned the court to release the domains. The company, Puerto 80 Projects, filed a brief in the Second District of New York which…
The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (S.968) unanimously passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 26. The legislation would allow the Justice Department to obtain court orders to go after sites “dedicated…
DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has seized more domain names of websites offering unauthorized access to copyrighted material in the fourth round Operation In Our Sites. TorrentFreak has been tracking the takedowns, and it reports that “Among the new…
Senator Leahy introduced the PROTECT-IP Act (S. 968) on May 12, designed to combat websites “dedicated to infringing activities.” The legislation is cosponsored by Sens. Schumer, Feinstein, Whitehouse, Graham, Kohl Coons, and Blumenthal. According to the official summary, the legislation…
The European internet service provider Scarelet Extended has appealed a court order that it block the file sharing of copyrighted music. In this context, the EU Advocate General Cruz Villalón has advised: “the Court of Justice should declare that EU…
On April 6,the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet held a hearing this week on the enforcement of IP online. Titled “Promoting Investment and Protecting Commerce Online: Legitimate Sites v. Parasites, Part II,” the hearing aimed…
BNA reports that “An online service that permits users to upload, store, and share images has no duty to ensure those files are noninfringing, even if it has received Digital Millennium Copyright Act-compliant notices requesting the removal of a plaintiff’s…
At a hearing titled “Promoting Investment and Protecting Commerce Online: Legitimate Sites v. Parasites, Part I” Subcommittee Members heard testimony from Maria Pallente (Acting U.S. Registrar of Copyrights); David Sohn Center for Democracy and Technology); Daniel Castro (Information Technology and…
IP Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel has issued a white paper that lists 20 legislative recommendations to Congress for the strengthening of IP enforcment. The paper recommends increasing prison sentences for the sale of counterfeiting drugs or products sold to military and law enforcement. It recommends changing the U.S. Sentencing Guideline Range for a number of specific infringements and for “repeat intellectual property offenders.” The paper recommends felony penalties for illegal streaming, and the authorization of wiretaps for investigations of copyright infringement. Although it makes no specific recommendations related to foreign-hosted websites that distribute infringing material, the paper says that the administration is eager to work with Congress on this issue.