Representative Zoe Lofgren Co-Introduces DEFEND IP Act Targeting Foreign Pirate Sites, Exempting VPNs
Representative Zoe Lofgren, alongside Senator Thom Tillis, has co-introduced the Deterring Extraterritorial Foreign Exploitation of Networks Damaging Intellectual Property (DEFEND IP) Act. This bicameral bill aims to empower copyright holders to compel intermediaries to block foreign pirate sites. The legislation merges previous drafts into a single proposal. Notably, the DEFEND IP Act explicitly exempts Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) from its scope, a significant departure from a competing proposal, the American Copyright Protection Act (ACPA), which had included VPNs. Under the DEFEND IP Act, court-ordered blocking would apply to broadband providers with at least 50,000 subscribers and public DNS resolvers generating over $100 million in annual revenue. The bill outlines a two-step legal process: first, a federal court must classify a website as a 'foreign digital piracy site,' and then rightsholders can request a blocking order if it is deemed 'technically feasible and effective.'
