Shutdown and Internet Updates

Looks like a government shut down to me. Battle between Republicans and Democrats over funding planned parenthood and lifting environmental restrictions might close the government down tonight at midnight. If this does happen, then all non-essential government employees will be stuck at home and millions of dollars will be lost.

I went to a very interesting hearing about the interent, piracy and counterfeiting. I want to explain some of the statements that people said while at the hearing. If you are interested at all in internet piracy, counterfeiting or google then read on, if not, stop and watch the news about the government shut down.

Ok so here are the people and here is what they said at the hearing. It is sort of long but kind of cool.

Speakers:

John Morton: U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement

Floyd Abrams: Partner Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP

Kent Walker: Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Google 

Christine Jones: Executive Vice President and General Counsel, GoDaddy

This hearing was another step in Congress’ review of IP infringement and counterfeiting problems, especially in online commerce. Such heightened review follows the priorities set by the IP Czar in her February 2011 report.

The primary solutions discussed at the hearing were to go after the money used to finance counterfeiting websites (via the banner advertisements) and how they ship goods (fed ex, UPS, etc).  Google asked the entertainment industry to play a more active role in telling Google what websites are legitimate and what are not. They also noted that companies other than Google should increase their oversight of the Internet. They also discussed increasing the consequences for counterfeiting, to create a deterrent effect. Legislation that addresses these concerns should be drawn up, but needs to have a narrow scope because it is impossible to predict changes in the future.

Overview:

           

            Online commerce has levels of theft that impacts movies, software, music, goods and services, and medicine. Counterfeit goods, fake products, and fake medicines are being sold illegally online and the goods are being shipped to American homes. Foreign websites that are out of the United States jurisdiction are selling illegitimate goods, laundering money, stealing ideas, and hurting the economy. This type of illegal activity stifles job creation. The jobs lost as a result of online theft are usually high paid; entertainment jobs that hurts the entire family. Counterfeiting goods reduces innovation. Reduction in innovation hurts companies such as Netflix whose investments have been undermined by counterfeit movies. Most of the sites people visit on the internet is through browsers such as Google and Yahoo. What is the government doing to prevent counterfeiting and piracy on the internet?

John Morton

            American businesses are under assault from copy right thieves and counterfeiters. Crime is taking place online and the government has begun investigating crimes online because thieves have led them there. The government is not trying to infringe on 1^st amendment rights, but when crimes are taking place, investigations need to occur. There are currently over 1,000 Intellectual Property investigations and 119 domain names have been seized. There has been enforcement of illegal streaming and downloading and no targeting of blogs or targeting of commercial interactions have occurred. Addressing online crime is not easy and should definitely not be off limits for enforcement.

Floyd Abrams

The internet should not be lawless. The law is the same to libel on the internet as it is in the newspaper. It is the same to invasion of privacy on the internet as it is on television. When addressing 1^st amendment concerns for the internet it must be drafted narrowly. It should only target websites that are totally infringing on privacy rights or pirating because it is important not to wipe out or block freedom of speech. Legislation should be based on laws that already exist. There have been copyright laws since 1790 and civil procedure with laws on the internet should make reference to old ones. It is important to protect copy right law so that will still encourage freedom of expression.

Walker

Google leads the industry in helping to combat counterfeit goods. Google has been willing to improve enforcement and operate in a meaningful way. Google is dedicated to fighting the bad guys that break the law, and at the same time, do not want to harm legitimate businesses. Google has spent millions of dollars and lots of time installing copyright tools into YouTube.com to block certain content ID and protecting the money to rights holders. Google has engineers that sole job is to work on protecting privacy rights.

When a copyright owner shows infringement to Google, they shut it down. When a Google user is duped into a website and counterfeit goods are sold, it reflects poorly on them. They have shut down 50,000 accounts that were selling counterfeit goods.

Enforcement problems are the main issue for Google. Removing sites and fighting the bad guys takes time, and is a constant battle. Google wants to remove content and movies that are counterfeited but the entertainment industry is a very complicated place.They have no way of knowing what is legitimate and what is not.  When the entertainment industry tells Google a site is illegitimate then it removes it. Google is ready to work with the content industry to identify and eliminate websites that sell counterfeit goods. It needs feedback to know what is legitimate and what is not.

Christine Jones

            In order to prevent online piracy and counterfeiting the money from these sites needs to be taken away. The shipping companies that deliver the goods, the media companies that pay for ads on the sites, and the people who facilitate the transactions needs to be controlled. The termination of illegal services will eliminate spam, identity theft, terrorism and illegal drug sales over the internet. A consequence for companies participating in counterfeit should be punished.