WK 06 EOC: Illicit

“Each year, online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods cost American businesses billions of dollars and result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs,” said Senator Patrick Leahy

Counterfeit DVDs, Rolex watches, and Gucci handbags being sold on the corner of any given New York City Street or other major metropolitan street corner reach much farther than the local level but farther abroad for their illicit activity. These items can be traced back to China and even terrorist groups looking to make money for unknown agendas. Counterfeiting is a worldwide epidemic and is not just confined to the city street anymore but also the internet.

Rick Cotton, chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Privacy, noted to The Washington Post, “There is an epidemic of digital theft on broadband Internet. This bill is actually quite a narrow, focused effort to address a portion of that epidemic.”  

Some efforts are being made to combat the tide of counterfeiting going on. On Nov. 19, 2010, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which allows the government to use court orders to shut down websites thought to infringe on copyright. Under the bill, a blacklist of domain names is formed, and the Attorney General may blacklist domain names with the consent of the judicial district in which the domain name registrar is located. The legislation allows the government to lock domain names and remove websites from view.

Even with some groups trying to combat the tide of counterfeiting going on, there are still some Americans that would rather turn a blind eye to what is going on and continue purchasing said goods to get a deal and remain trendy, regardless the cost to jobs and revenue. These same people believe it that companies should be responsible for their own security.

Rex Lam, MIT ’14, said. “The entertainment industries themselves should be responsible for preventing their produced material from being illegally copied.”