copyright

This week, the US government responded to a Spanish Internet company’s petition to have its seized domain name returned. Earlier this year, customs officials seized the domains rojadirecta.com and rojadirecta.org under suspicion of copyright infringement. The domains’ owner, Puerto 80, has argued that, by seizing the domain names and preventing their use, the government has not just taken down a legitimate site, but also is suppressing speech—not just the speech of the site’s operators, but of the users on the discussion boards hosted at the site.

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UPDATE: Added mention of the $35 appeal fee in the “Appeals” section below.

Today, major ISPs joined the RIAA and MPAA in announcing a joint program to deal with file-sharing. The document governing this agreement, a “Copyright Alert System,” is hosted here. Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy and Technology issued a joint statement on the CAS, available here.

The Senate is gearing up for another go-round on rogue websites legislation, and this time, they've jettisoned the "COICA" label in favor of calling it the "PROTECT IP Act." Like a summer blockbuster sequel, it tightens up some things, adds a few new villains, but in the end reprises the same general plot.

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