Internet Piracy: Is Protecting Intellectual Property Worth Government Censorship?

Abstract

Intellectual property law has struggled to keep up with new technologies and the issues posed by new mediums of communication. With the rise of the Internet, digital piracy has led to millions of dollars worth of losses in American intellectual property. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA ") was intended to address some of the problems related to online infringement; however, at the time the DMCA was drafted, the legislature did not foresee that peer-to-peer file sharing software would give millions of users instant illegal access to copyrighted works. In response to lobbying for an expansion of copyright protection, the Senate introduced the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. The Act will give the Attorney General the power to bring an action against websites dedicated to online infringement. If the Attorney General is successful, the court may issue an order to internet service providers to block access to the infringing site, to financial institutions to stop providing online payment systems to infringing sites, and to online advertisers to prevent them from purchasing ad space on the infringing website. Additionally, the Act will require Internet service providers to block all access to foreign infringing web pages from within the United States. Proponents of the Act are certain that it will help decrease the prevalence of online infringement; however, critics of the Act argue that it is overly broad and will trample over free speech. This Comment discusses the history of modern copyright law, including the rise of digital piracy, and the implications of the proposed Intellectual Property Act.