The Electronic Frontier Foundation is attempting to rally opposition to anti-piracy site-blocking measures.
The draft Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act, introduced in February by representative Zoe Lofgren, includes court-ordered blocking measures against foreign pirate sites by both internet providers and public DNS resolvers.
Meanwhile, another piece of potential legislation touted by representative Darrell Issa, the American Copyright Protection Act, is believed to contain similar provisions.
“We’ve arrived at a proposal that has a remedy for copyright infringers located overseas that does not disrupt the free internet except for the infringers,” she said at the time.
“The Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act is a smart, targeted approach that focuses on safety and intellectual property, while simultaneously upholding due process, respecting free speech, and ensuring enforcement is narrowly focused on the actual problem at hand.”
However, the EFF is calling on internet users to contact their representatives and express their opposition.
“These new proposals would let rights holders get federal court orders forcing ISPs and DNS providers to block entire websites based on accusations of infringing copyright. Lawmakers claim they’re targeting “pirate” sites—but what they’re really doing is building an internet kill switch,” said the EFF’s Joe Mullin.
“These bills are an unequivocal and serious threat to a free and open internet. EFF and our supporters are going to fight back against them.”
Part of the problem is the concern that many websites are hosted on cloud infrastructure or use shared IP addresses – meaning that blocking one target site could also hit thousands of unrelated sites.
Meanwhile, said campaigners, target sites can easily create new domains to sidestep a ban in just a few hours, while users can access sites easily using a virtual private network.
“Even if one of the websites shut down as a result of FADPA was a pirate website, these determined infringers can simply set up shop on a new domain within hours. VPNs and DNS tweaks are simple tools that render site-blocking efforts easy to bypass for those who make it their business,” commented patent attorney Brett Trout.
“These tools are vital lifelines in authoritarian countries, where they help people access independent news and uncensored content. Forcing Americans and small independent American companies to rely on those same tools is an unacceptable outcome of domestic legislation.”
The bill is reminiscent of similar legislation—the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act—which faced massive opposition more than a decade ago. Protests escalated, culminating in an ‘Internet blackout’ in January 2012. The bills were both ultimately abandoned.
FADPA isn’t quite as hard-line as SOPA or PIPA, targeting only foreign websites and requiring a court order from a judge to on a case-by-case basis.
But, said Trout, “FADPA may wear a new face, but it raises the same old treats: chilling effects on speech, unjust takedowns, and a fundamental shift in how the internet operates.”
The EFF is unlikely to muster the same level of support for its anti-FADPA campaign as it managed back in 2012—since then, site-blocking has appeared in various forms elsewhere around the world. However, given the controversial nature of the bill, it’s possible that it too will die a quiet death.
