‘Death Penalty’ Bill Could Force Websites to Kill Traffic to Copyright Infringement

CNET is reporting that a Senate bill backed by “movie studios and other large copyright holders” with bipartisan support from Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) and Orrin Hatch (R), among others, would give the government the power to force search engines to filter sites from their listings, and any other “information location tool” to remove links to the site; effectively wiping away any traces of the website in the US.

The bill would also give copyright holders the right to seek a levy that blocks financial transactions with the website, and adds the site to an Internet advertising blacklist. Presumably, advertising networks would be forced to cut ties to any websites accused of copyright infringement, and refuse future business.

While the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) is the most public voice behind the bill, it’s not difficult to imagine protective fashion brands like Christian Louboutin, Louis Vuitton and others who’ve struggled with increasingly well organized and well funded counterfeit sellers online supporting the bill as well.

In a statement, Leahy said the proposed law would enable the government to “crack down on rogue Web sites dedicated to the sale of infringing or counterfeit goods.”

For Milanoo, the Chinese e-commerce store that received a multi-million dollar investment on the back of counterfeit fashion sales outside of China, the law could give brands teeth in pushing offenders out of the American market, but there are a number of reasons we don’t see this working.

First, there’s the task of enforcement. Sites like Milanoo (and others too numerous to mention in the space of a single post) often perfect the art of high risk search engine optimization tactics to push their product pages up in Google’s search results. Digital Due Dilligence, the company used as the main source in the New York Times article that exposed JC Penney’s use of tactics to artificially increase their position, noticed similar strategies at work propping Milanoo up for terms like “cheap dresses.”

It’s not unheard of for search engines to manually adjust rankings to penalize websites that use high risk tactics like paid links, but that’s not a process that scales, so it doesn’t happen often. The current bill would not only force Google to perform several manual adjustments, but the thousands of websites who may have sold or placed a link to a site like Milanoo as well. Does law enforcement really have that much time? Even if they do, would the cost really be worth it?

Second, a new domain can be obtained for less than $10. In the time it takes to wipe one off of the internet a new one will be up with a clean record and a need for industry associations and brands to start over again each time a new site pops up.

Third would be social media, and the things that can happen behind walled gardens. While Twitter’s links and activity are mostly out in the open, Facebook still has a good amount of sharing taking place between friends with private relationships. Even if Facebook receives the same removal instructions and scrubs mentions of an offending URL from its site for US users, it will probably be after the URL has already spread to some extent.

While we can appreciate the frustration of copyright holders, this bill seems to have the potential to become an internet censorship bill that’s never going to actually be practical to enforce, or effective at keeping up with shifts in technology.