AT&T asks government to create national censorwall and system for disconnecting accused infringers

In its comments to Victoria Espinel, the American IP enforcement czar, AT&T calls on the government to hold tribunal in which accused infringers will lose their internet access. It doesn’t want a full court to evaluate claims of infrigment, just a high-speed, traffic-court-style process by which entire families will lose their lifelines to the electronic society.

AT&T also wants the government to establish a list of banned websites that all ISPs are ordered to block.

But that doesn’t mean AT&T is opposed to various forms of “three strikes” or “graduated response” programs meant to deter online copyright infringement; it just wants someone else to implement them. If the government wants to get into the enforcement business, AT&T would be fine with that. Actually, the company would be more than fine with the proposal–it suggests that the government get into the business of adjudicating such cases and dishing out penalties.

This might sound like a role for the courts, but AT&T and rightsholders argue that the current legal process is simply too slow and too expensive to deal wisely with online copyright infringement. Instead, AT&T proposes a “streamlined and reasonable adjudication system for rights holders to resolve civil infringement claims against end users.” Call it “court lite…”

Also, AT&T thinks that getting the US government into website blocking would be a pretty terrific idea. AT&T suggests that the Department of Justice “create and maintain a list of international websites known to host and traffic in infringed copyrighted works.”

AT&T wants 3 strikes tribunal, government website blacklist