This morning's Politico brought with it great news for those who care about free speech and fair use online:
A markup on SJC Chairman Leahy’s IP infringement bill was postponed late Wednesday, as staffers anticipated the chamber would finish legislative work and adjourn for recess before the hearing could commence. The change in plans should delight some of the bill’s critics, at least, who expressed concern that the legislation was moving forward quickly.
Translation: The Senate Judiciary Committee won't be considering the dangerously flawed "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) bill until after the midterm elections, at least.
This is a real victory! The entertainment industry and their allies in Congress had hoped this bill would be quickly approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee with no debate before the Senators went home for the October recess.
Massive thanks to all of you who used our Action Center to write to your Senators to oppose this bill. Thanks as well to the 87 Internet scientists and engineers whose open letter to Congress played a key role in today's success, and to all the other voices that helped sound the alarm.
Make no mistake, though: this bill will be back soon enough, and Congress will again need to hear from concerned citizens like you. So stay tuned to EFF.org for any new developments.
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On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Konstantinos Komaitis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I would definitely support this idea Bill. COICA is a terrible move towards censorship yet not really surprising. I have commented on it: http://www.komaitis.org/1/post/2010/09/impressed-no-not-really-my-views-on-the-new-online-infringement-and-counterfeits-act.html
KK
Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,
Law Lecturer,
Director of Postgraduate Instructional Courses
Director of LLM Information Technology and Telecommunications Law
University of Strathclyde,
The Law School,
Graham Hills building,
50 George Street, Glasgow G1 1BA
UK
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
http://www.routledgemedia.com/books/The-Current-State-of-Domain-Name-Regulation-isbn9780415477765
Selected publications: http://hq.ssrn.com/submissions/MyPapers.cfm?partid=501038
Website: www.komaitis.org
From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of William Drake
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 9:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: COICA
Hi
Maybe this is something on which NCSG, ALAC, and others in ICANNland should weigh in on, e.g. with a letter to Leahy? It would certainly seem to fall within our bailiwick...
Have yet to hear anything from the contracted parties, will be interesting to see how they play it…
Bill
Begin forwarded message:
From: William Drake <[log in to unmask]>
Date: September 30, 2010 9:54:54 AM GMT+02:00
To: [log in to unmask], "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: COICA
Hi
COICA is an intergalactically horrible idea that seems designed to greatly escalate concerns about unilateralism vis. CIR. As CDT's letter http://cdt.org/files/pdfs/Leahy_bill_memo.pdf notes,
"S. 3804 significantly aggravates the situation by suggesting to the world that the U.S. does intend to use the historic nature of the DNS (with American companies administering “.com” and other leading top-level domains) to impose American law on the global Internet. Under the bill, the U.S. asserts that it can take down websites created and operated anywhere in the world, simply based on the fact that the websites use the most popular global top-level domain (.com). This type of assertion of global control is the kind of U.S. exercise of power about which other countries of the world have worried – and about which U.S. foreign policy has sought to reassure the world. Thus S. 3804 directly harms the United Statesʼ Internet governance agenda pursued through diplomatic channels over the past ten years."
A bit astonishing and sad that the bill was introduced by Patrick Leahy, who for many years has been a champion of online civil liberties and partner of US public interest groups on digital matters. But the IPR lobby is a powerful beast that apparently must be placated…Still, I'd like to think he's going through the motions here and knows this should fail.
Bill
On Sep 30, 2010, at 9:37 AM, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang wrote:
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William J. Drake
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Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
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William J. Drake
Senior Associate
Centre for International Governance
Graduate Institute of International and
Development Studies
Geneva, Switzerland
[log in to unmask]
www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.htmlwww.linkedin.com/in/williamjdrake
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