Senate IP Subcommittee Exploring Site Blocking as Piracy Remedy

The Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee will explore site blocking as a form of internet piracy prevention, Chairman Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told us Tuesday after a hearing. Ranking member Chris Coons, D-Del., said he’s “open to it,” and it needs to be weighed against the speech concerns.

The subcommittee is considering updates to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see 2002110047). Tillis said the point is to solve the problem that the U.S. is losing a lot given the copyright status quo. Witnesses discussed benefits of site blocking in places like the U.K. Others raised freedom of speech and competition concerns.

“We’re looking at it,” Tillis said of site blocking, while raising such worries. “I think there’s a way around it.” He suggested there could be a way to tailor a proposal to target infringers based on size.

If site-blocking is a technology we can make work in protecting copyright, “I’m open to it,” Coons told us. He wants to be fully informed about the harms to free expression. There are significant challenges from widespread piracy and cumulative harms from having no effective enforcement mechanism in the U.S., he said.

Some 45 countries, including the U.K. and Australia, have implemented site-blocking regimes, said Motion Picture Association President-Europe, Middle East and Africa Stan McCoy. Experience confirms this curtails illegal conduct and expands legitimate commerce, he said. McCoy urged Congress to work with the Trump administration to prevent export of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act or any other provisions that confer broad immunity from illegal behavior, which erodes the rule of law.

Site blocking is a fair and effective way of combating piracy, said Millennium Films co-President Jonathan Yunger. It has worked, and “the internet is not broken,” he added. He cited increased revenue in the U.K. and decreases in revenue in countries with weaker protections, like the U.S.

Tillis suggested there’s a breaking point, where certain types of creative works that used to be profitable, no longer are because of piracy. Certain movies have crossed the threshold, agreed Carnegie Mellon University information and marketing professor Michael Smith. It removes the lower portion of the creative pyramid, Tillis said.

Loyola Marymount University Law School professor Justin Hughes noted South Korea used to have rampant piracy. The U.S. was instrumental in pushing South Korea to improve its IP protections, and that country's music and films now flourish, he said.