New US Piracy Bill Exempts VPN Providers

US Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Zoe Lofgren have introduced the DEFEND IP Act, a proposal aimed at giving copyright holders a way to seek court orders blocking foreign piracy sites. The bill combines two earlier drafts.

Unlike Representative Darrell Issa’s competing American Copyright Protection Act (ACPA), the DEFEND IP Act explicitly excludes entities that exclusively provide virtual private network (VPN) services or similar services that encrypt and route user traffic through intermediary servers. The word “exclusively” may leave questions for cybersecurity companies that bundle VPNs with other products.

The proposed blocking process has two steps. First, a federal court would have to designate a website as a “foreign digital piracy site,” based on whether it is primarily designed for copyright infringement or intentionally marketed as a piracy destination. Copyright holders could then ask a judge for a blocking order, which the court would assess for technical feasibility and effectiveness.

Orders would last one year and could be renewed. They could also cover live-streaming events. The bill would apply to broadband providers with at least 50,000 subscribers and public DNS resolvers with more than $100 million in annual revenue.

Digital rights group Public Knowledge opposes the proposal, warning that blocking orders aimed at global DNS resolvers could cause global blocks. The source reports that the current congressional term ends in January and that Tillis and Issa are leaving Congress at its end. The proposal has been introduced; the source does not report that it has become law.