Yesterday there was a Senate Judiciary Committee about COICA, the controversial legislation that would make it even easier to seize domain names of sites that are deemed to be promoting copyright infringement.
One of the testimonies came from Authors Guild president and best-selling thriller author Scott Turow, who told Congress:
“BitTorrent is to stealing movies, TV shows, music, videogames, and now books what bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles.”
“It’s as if shopkeepers in some strange land were compelled to operate with wide-open side doors that would-be customers can sneak out of with impunity, arms laden with goods. In that bizarre place, an ever-growing array of businesses that profit only if the side exit is used eagerly assist the would-be customers, leaving the shopkeeper with only one thing to offer paying customers: the dignity of exiting through the front door.”
“Piracy has all but dismantled our recorded music industry. Any business plan in the music industry must now take into account that piracy is the rule, not the exception.”
“The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ‘safe harbor’ for online service providers has turned out to be an exploitable gold mine for unscrupulous online enterprises.”
More details of the hearing and the other speakers who testified can be found at ARS.
