White House Issues New Plan to Curb Piracy

Variety.com is reporting that the White House will encourage search engines, cyberlockers and domain name registrars to come up with voluntary agreements with Hollywood and other industries to curb online piracy of movies, TV shows and music, as the prospects for future significant anti-infringement legislation on Capitol Hill have stalled.

The efforts by the administration to reduce infringement were outlined in a strategic plan released by Victoria Espinel, the White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, who has been dubbed the "copyright czar."

Espinel's report indicated that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would study the effectiveness of voluntary agreements that are now in place. This includes a recently launched "copyright alert" system that the movie and record industries launched along with major Internet providers earlier this year, in which consumers who repeatedly download pirated content are sent warnings, with the possibility of having their service slowed after the 5th or 6th such notice. The system has been dubbed "six strikes," although users do not face having their service shut down altogether if they continue to access pirated content.

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7/24/13