Mild Musings II: AT&T asks government to create national censorwall and system for disconnecting accused infringers

Sunday, May 2, 2010

AT&T asks government to create national censorwall and system for disconnecting accused infringers

In its comments to Victoria Espinel, the American IP enforcement czar, AT&T calls on the government to hold tribunal in which accused infringers will lose their internet access. It doesn't want a full court to evaluate claims of infrigment, just a high-speed, traffic-court-style process by which entire families will lose their lifelines to the electronic society.

AT&T also wants the government to establish a list of banned websites that all ISPs are ordered to block.

But that doesn't mean AT&T is opposed to various forms of "three strikes" or "graduated response" programs meant to deter online copyright infringement; it just wants someone else to implement them. If the government wants to get into the enforcement business, AT&T would be fine with that. Actually, the company would be more than fine with the proposal--it suggests that the government get into the business of adjudicating such cases and dishing out penalties.
This might sound like a role for the courts, but AT&T and rightsholders argue that the current legal process is simply too slow and too expensive to deal wisely with online copyright infringement. Instead, AT&T proposes a "streamlined and reasonable adjudication system for rights holders to resolve civil infringement claims against end users." Call it "court lite..."
Also, AT&T thinks that getting the US government into website blocking would be a pretty terrific idea. AT&T suggests that the Department of Justice "create and maintain a list of international websites known to host and traffic in infringed copyrighted works."

AT&T wants 3 strikes tribunal, government website blacklist

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