Dear Steve,
Thank you for contacting me about the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.
I believe that intellectual property enforcement is extremely important. We must protect American jobs from piracy, which has become rampant on the Internet. We don't tolerate shoplifters in stores, and we should not tolerate them online.
COICA would give the Department of Justice an expedited process for cracking down on websites whose primary purpose is to sell pirated goods. Right now, if a company finds that its products are being pirated or counterfeited online, its only recourse is to sue in civil court, a process that can take years, during which time the offending website continues to do harm. Under COICA, the Justice Department gains jurisdiction over off-shore infringers--something that is extremely difficult under current law--and can use expedited legal procedures to stop the worst of these offenders.
I was initially wary of COICA, but there have been some important improvements that have addressed my concerns. The most controversial provision of this bill, sometimes called the "Internet Blacklist," originally directed the Justice Department to publish a list of offending websites and encouraged Internet service providers (ISPs) and other relevant parties to shut down the listed websites without a judicial process. This provision was clearly wrong, and I was glad to see it removed prior to the bill's consideration. I also worked with Chairman Leahy to narrow the definition of an infringing site to include only sites where copyright infringement is "the central purpose" of the site, not sites which may be engaged in copyright infringement incidentally but are also devoted to other purposes. This bill has also been amended to protect net neutrality. In the initial version of the bill, ISPs were given legal immunity to voluntarily enforce the bill's provisions and block access to websites. This provision has been removed. As it currently stands, this bill won't allow a fast lane and a slow lane of Internet traffic. It will not affect net neutrality, which has always been about protecting users' access to legal content.
It is unlikely that this bill will come to the floor of the Senate before the end of the year. This means that it must pass through the legislative process again in the next Congress. I look forward to working with Chairman Leahy to further improve the bill next year.
Thank you again for contacting me. Please don't hesitate to contact me again on this or any other issue that may be important to you.
Sincerely,
Al Franken
United States Senator
