Berman Crafting New IP Bill
July 21, 2010
| 2:07 PM
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., said Wednesday that he is working on legislation with Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that would aim to crack down on Web sites that provide pirated goods and content.
During a hearing on international intellectual property enforcement efforts, Berman said he and Leahy are working on legislation that would build on an enforcement effort announced last month by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that seized the Internet addresses, also known as domain names, of seven Web sites that were offering pirated copies of newly released movies.
Berman discussed the importance of gaining the assistance of legitimate businesses that help facilitate piracy such as the credit cards and other payment systems used to pay for pirated goods and content.
"We are committed to reining in the rogue sites and the intermediaries that facilitate or support financially the online businesses predicated on theft," he said.
As part of the recently released national strategy on IP enforcement, Victoria Espinel, the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, said her office working with other agencies would be expanding its efforts to go after foreign-based Web sites and services that infringe U.S. IP through a "a combination of tools, including law enforcement, diplomatic measures, and coordination with the private sector."
Many of the panel's lawmakers called on the Obama administration to get tougher on China, which is among the top sources of pirated goods and content.
"China is by far the worst violator of intellectual property rights globally, and its government is complicit in ensuring that it keeps its No. 1 position," Foreign Affairs ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said, adding that despite repeated pledges to crack down on piracy, it has made minimal efforts and has in the case of China's largest Internet search company Baidu provided "tacit" support.
"With the government looking on, Baidu automatically offers to those who log on to its site the opportunity to link to a long list of known music piracy sites -- in effect actively facilitating the theft of intellectual property," Ros-Lehtinen said.
During a separate hearing, Business Software Alliance President Robert Holleyman told the House Small Business Committee that a recent study conducted by his group and the market research firm IDC found that more than $51 billion worth of software was stolen in 2009. "That included nearly four out of five programs running on personal computers in high-piracy markets like China," he said.
At the Foreign Affairs hearing, Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., and other lawmakers suggested the administration consider imposing countervailing duties on Chinese imports in response to China's failure to crack down on the theft of U.S. intellectual property. "There has to be real consequences," he said. "If there is not, this is going to continue."
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