US lawmakers target ‘rogue websites’ with online infringement act | The Raw Story: “Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress pledged Monday to pass legislation that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites engaged in piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would introduce a new version ‘soon’ of a bill designed to combat so-called ‘rogue websites.’
A previous bill co-sponsored by Leahy, called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 19-0 vote in November, but never made it to the Senate floor.
Leahy, speaking to reporters on Monday, said: ‘Online infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods costs American creators, producers, and businesses billions of dollars and results in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs.
‘This theft is unacceptable at any time; it is devastating in our current economic climate,’ he said.
House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, said: ‘The success of our economy is in part tied to the success of America’s intellectual property industries.”