Content creators, the law enforcement and even the government must give importance in taking serious steps to fight online piracy; and fortunately, the entire players in the digital economy can now come together with a new voluntary agreement.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is teaming up with a domain name registry that is not engaged in large-scale piracy called Donuts. It offers new generic top-level domains with online naming options of extensions, like .company, .movie, .theater, and almost 200 more. It opens up new ways of engagement for online businesses, such as “The Hunger Games” movies (www.thehungergames.movie) and the Alphabet (www.abc.xyz).
The Donuts-MPAA agreement protects Donuts’ brand by ensuring the legitimacy of its domains, and are law-abiding contributors to the digital world. As the MPAA has sole interest in large-scale players that pirate full-length movies, particularly pre-release or those still shown in theatres, this agreement provides a clear path in taking down infringing sites and materials.
Each case requires human review, and if the case that requires human review checks all the boxes, the domain name registry has agreed to lock, suspend or terminate the domain name under the terms of acceptable use and anti-abuse policy. This agreement only shows that private-sector stakeholders can join forces to address online piracy and create a scenario that is a win for all partners.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)’s president welcomed the Donuts-MPAA agreement. However, during a congressional hearing, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) outlined that ICANN, which governs the internet’s DNS or domain name system, has a history of poor enforcement of its policies and puts its own interests ahead of the global internet community. Still, protection of intellectual property has definitely progressed and industries will continue to improve its steps in the coming years.