Time for US to Reexamine Website Blocking as Piracy-Fighting Tool : ITIF

Website blocking has been shown around the world to be "a fair, effective, and proportionate tool" for tackling pirate sites, and the U.S. needs to follow suit with a legal route for rightsholders to get ISPs to block websites involved in mass dissemination of copyright-infringing content, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Wednesday. Since Congress failed in 2012 to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, 33 nations have adopted laws letting rightsholders obtain injunctions requiring ISPs to block access to pirate sites "and the Internet continues to flourish," ITIF said. It said those nations have shown that SOPA/PIPA-era criticisms "simply do not hold up to scrutiny" and that website blocking "is a fair, effective, and proportionate tool to target sites involved in the mass, illegal dissemination of copyrighted content and that it does not undermine human rights, free speech, or net neutrality."