Today, SIIA filed these comments to the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on international Internet policy priorities.  The comments are in response to this NTIA Notice of Inquiry (NOI) soliciting stakeholder input.  SIIA’s suggested priorities are summarized below.  The first three priorities are particularly important because they lay the foundation for good international Internet policy, broadly speaking.

Today, there were two events devoted to Internet governance in Washington, D.C.  The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation organized “Passing the Torch: How will Internet Governance Change in a Post-American World.”  This event included as a panelist Chris Wilson from 21st Century Fox, an SIIA member.   Afterwards, the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee arranged a hearing on “Privatizing the Internet Assigned Number Authority,” which included an all-star cast of witnesses. Why the upsurge in interest?  The March 10 decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board to transmit to the U.S. government a set of proposals to transfer to multistakeholder oversight the functioning of Internet’s address system, the Doman Name Server (DNS) system is the reason.  SIIA welcomed that decision.  The proposals are serious, thorough and have been developed through a ...

In the internet environment, copyright enforcement often begins with filing a John Doe suit against unknown infringers identified by IP addresses, figuring out which ISP owns those addresses, and then obtaining information from the ISP about the identity of a particular subscriber.  In Killer Joe Nevada v. Leaverton, the Eight Circuit held that a district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to award attorneys’ fees when a copyright plaintiff voluntarily dismissed a case against a particular individual that was identified by IP address.