goodlatte

'Aaron's Law' rewrite backfires, reformers now on defensive

For years, criminal defense attorneys, academics, and civil libertarians have warned that an anti-hacking law, originally designed to protect NORAD's computers, needs to be reformed. Federal prosecutors have used the law to prosecute the late Aaron Swartz and a Missouri woman accused of lying on her MySpace profile.

Now a key U.S. House of Representatives committee finally is rewriting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But instead of fixing the law's vagueness problems, or reducing its penalties, draft legislation backed by the Justice Department would make it even more Draconian.

It's a bitter setback to the … Read more

Growing pressure in Congress to fix flaws in DMCA law

A once-obscure copyright law that the U.S. Senate unanimously approved in 1998 has finally irritated so many members of the public that Congress might bother to defang it.

It's not like the flaws of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have remained a state secret for the last 15 years: it's been wielded to threaten Princeton security researchers, restrict replacement garage door openers, and jail a programmer who dared to create an e-book converter. One federal appeals court even invoked the law when banning "linking" to certain DMCA-offending Web sites.

Not one of those extrusions of … Read more

After a year in the grave, can SOPA and Protect IP return?

It was one year ago today that an unprecedented outcry against the Stop Online Piracy Act proved to Washington officialdom that sufficiently irritated Internet users are a potent political force. After Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist and other major sites asked their users to contact their representatives, the deluge of traffic knocked some Senate Web sites offline, and votes on both bills were indefinitely postponed.

The massive public outcry that, by some counts, involved more than 10 million Internet users concerned about the proposals' impact on free expression has turned the protests into a cautionary tale on Capitol Hill. Aides now worry … Read more

Meet Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Hollywood's new copyright ally

The outgoing chairman of a House of Representatives panel responsible for U.S. copyright law conceived the memorable Stop Online Piracy Act. Its next chairman happens to be even more enthusiastic about expanding digital copyright law.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte was elected head of the House Judiciary committee today, much to the dismay of advocacy groups that had doggedly worked to defeat SOPA and Protect IP a year ago.

The Virginia Republican has long been a steadfast ally of Hollywood and other large copyright holders, saying as recently as two months ago that "I remain committed to enacting strong copyright … Read more

SOPA: Hollywood's latest effort to turn back time

commentary The introduction late last week by members of the House Judiciary Committee of the "Stop Online Piracy Act," or SOPA, may test a long-standing reluctance by technology companies to take up arms in the legislative battleground.

The bill, introduced as the House version of the Senate's Protect IP Act, solves few of the glaring problems of the Senate bill and introduces many all its own. While Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) may have given in to hyperbole in calling SOPA "the end of the Internet as we know it," there is certainly a great deal … Read more

Five essential changes to Protect IP Act

The Senate's controversial Protect IP Act, which would significantly expand both public and private enforcement of online copyright and trademark infringement, is returning to center stage.

That was the message yesterday from U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who led a town hall meeting yesterday in Palo Alto, Calif. Goodlatte, a leader in Congress on technology policy, told a crowd of over a hundred that the House is working on its own version of the Senate bill.

Protect IP passed unanimously out of committee in May and now awaits a full floor vote. Goodlatte acknowledged that the Senate version … Read more

White House will propose new digital copyright laws

The Obama administration has drafted new proposals to curb Internet piracy and other forms of intellectual property infringement that it says it will send to the U.S. Congress "in the very near future."

It's also applauding a controversial copyright treaty known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, saying it will "aid right-holders and the U.S. government to combat infringement" once it enters into effect.

Those disclosures came from a report released today by Victoria Espinel, whom President Obama selected as the first intellectual property enforcement coordinator and was confirmed by the Senate … Read more

Bill: China Net censorship could start trade war

Half a year ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lauded Internet freedom and criticized China in a high-profile speech in Washington, D.C. A few weeks later, a Global Internet Freedom Caucus on Capitol Hill was formed.

But the Chinese authorities weren't exactly paying attention. Since Clinton's speech, China has reaffirmed its commitment to state censorship, required online map providers to obtain licenses and host their images inside the country, blocked Foursquare, and announced new rules for media companies. Earlier this week, China made Google rethink how it could move some search operations to Hong Kong.

If anything, … Read more