Remember when Google defended itself from any culpability due to “safe-harbor” protection from hosting copyright-infringing material and, instead, argued that the responsibility of policing those infringements should rest with the copyright holders themselves? It appears as that several entertainment companies have begrudgingly taken Google’s advice and now, with the help of several internet service providers, are preparing to roll out the Center for Copyright Information, you’re one-stop shopping center for all things anti-piracy.
According to Greg Sandoval over at CNET, the new foreboding-sounding organization will be opening its doors for business very soon and will basically be the hub with which ISPs, film studios, and music labels will work to curb the scrouge of online copyright infringement. According to a document from last July wherein the CCI was proposed, the center will multitask the effort against online privacy by educating the public on the dos and don’ts of online privacy while assisting in the handling of “subscribers engaged in persistent peer-to-peer online infringement.”
Regarding that last part, the CCI will be involved in the overseeing of the graduate-response program that you may have heard of if you’re familiar with the ongoing piracy saga. Last month, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman told the Association of American Publishers that ISPs would be tightening the grip on online piracy as soon as July 12. The graduated response essentially represents a hierarchy of offenses that contain an escalation of punitive measures for repeat offenders including, among other things, something that sounds oddly like internet traffic school. One imagines that, eventually, you might even win a suspension of service although it doesn’t appear ISPs will outright terminate a user’s internet service.
Sandoval reports that the CCI has tapped Jill Lesser, the managing director of lobbying and public policy firm Glover Park Group, to head the center.