On February 9,
2016, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Donuts Inc., the
world’s largest operator of new domain name extensions, established a voluntary
initiative
to help ensure that websites using Donuts-operated top-level domains are not
engaging in large-scale piracy. Under the terms of the agreement, Donuts will treat MPAA as a “Trusted Notifier” with
respect to referrals that include clear evidence of
copyright infringement.
MPAA will submit
referrals to Donuts regarding domains which provide false Whois information,
engage in copyright infringement, and/or facilitate the sale of illegal
content. Then, Donuts will review the referrals and take appropriate enforcement
action against the domains.
In December 2015, “Digital Bait”, a Digital
Citizens Alliance report, found that malware associated with piracy sites cost consumers $70 million per year.
Piracy online remains a problem. Additionally, for instance, the recent movies “Interstellar” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” have been pirated over 46 million and 30 million times, respectively. This agreement between MPAA and Donuts and other voluntary initiatives, such as TAG and MPAA’s WheretoWatch.com, help consumers find legal content and raise awareness about websites, enterprises, and advertisers that violate intellectual property rights.
Other initiatives, like the Copyright Alert System, allow artists and creators to protect their intellectual property by alerting Internet service providers when a subscriber has engaged in copyright infringement.
It
is necessary to address and hopefully diminish piracy and content theft with
voluntary initiatives to help ensure that content providers, artists,
innovators, and marketers can earn a return on their creative works – thereby
incentivizing more innovation, investment, and economic growth. The new
Donuts-MPAA voluntary agreement is a positive step in the ongoing fight against
piracy of online content.
Piracy online remains a problem. Additionally, for instance, the recent movies “Interstellar” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” have been pirated over 46 million and 30 million times, respectively. This agreement between MPAA and Donuts and other voluntary initiatives, such as TAG and MPAA’s WheretoWatch.com, help consumers find legal content and raise awareness about websites, enterprises, and advertisers that violate intellectual property rights.
Other initiatives, like the Copyright Alert System, allow artists and creators to protect their intellectual property by alerting Internet service providers when a subscriber has engaged in copyright infringement.
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