Anti-Piracy Bill Could Hurt Online Advertising

A proposed anti-piracy bill pending in the Senate could make it difficult for online advertisers and credit card companies to continue doing business on the Web, warns a group of law professors.

The Protect IP Act (S. 968), which recently cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, is aimed at sites "dedicated to infringing activities." The measure enables the Department of Justice to obtain orders prohibiting Internet service providers from putting through traffic to those sites' URLs. (Web users could still reach the sites by typing in their numerical addresses.) The Protect IP Act also provides for court orders forcing Google, Bing and other search engines to stop returning certain results. In addition, the proposed law would require credit-card companies and advertisers to stop doing business with sites that content owners allege are dedicated to infringement.

"Giving this enormous new power not just to the government but to any copyright and trademark owner would not only disrupt the operations of the allegedly infringing Web site without a final judgment of wrongdoing, but would make it extraordinarily difficult for advertisers and credit-card companies to do business on the Internet," the academics allege in a letter drafted by professors Mark Lemley of Stanford, David Levine of Elon and David Post of Temple.