CDT Statement on introduction of Protect IP Act

Washington–Today, the Center for Democracy & Technology released the following statement in response the introduction of the Protect ID Act.

The following can be attributed to CDT Senior Policy Counsel David Sohn:

CDT still has serious reservations about this legislation, but we appreciate Senator Leahy’s willingness to work on some of the concerns that we and others raised about earlier versions of the bill.   In particular, the new bill rightly narrows the definition of infringement websites to target true bad actors.  This is a significant improvement, because it reduces the potential for multi-purpose and user-generated-content websites to be mistakenly targeted.

We are still concerned, however, that the legislation continues to feature domain-name-blocking strategies that won’t work and risk a variety of collateral consequences.  A more focused ‘follow the money’ approach, relying on the remedies that aim to dry up the financial lifeblood of infringement sites, would ultimately be more effective and less controversial."

Further reactions to the new bill are posted on CDT’s blog here.