Lawmakers Press Verisign To Join ‘Trusted Notifier’ Program And Take More Action To Combat Piracy

deadline.com:

For most of the last decade, the strategy of Hollywood studios and content creators in combating piracy has been in securing the cooperation of Internet companies and related actors in the ecosystem.Earlier this year, MPA Chairman Charles Rivkin signaled a new level of cooperation with Google, after years in which the search giant was pilloried for not doing enough to combat copyright infringement.More recently, a focus has been on the largest domain name registry, Verisign, with lawmakers querying the company on why it has declined so far to join an initiative to identify and eventually disable egregious infringing websites.

Such agreements are referred to as “trusted notifier” arrangements, in which a registry or registrar is provided with accurate information about illegal website content, eventually leading to the disabling of the sites.“Verisign serves as the registry for almost half of all domain name registrations,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the company last spring. “The company is therefore uniquely positioned to help curb this illegal activity.

Its failure to do so has served as a significant contributor to the enormous scope and scale of the problem.”Those signing the letter included Sen.

Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Sen.