Site-Blocking Will Not Defend IP, No Matter the Bill's Name

Sites-blocking bills like the DEFEND IP Act would not protect creators but would build a censorship infrastructure that invites abuse, overbroad blocking, and collateral harm to lawful speech. Rather than targeting individual infringing copies (which the DMCA already addresses), DEFEND IP lets any rights holder get a court order forcing service providers to block access to an entire website after an allegation of infringement. It deputizes ISPs, payment processors, search engines, and hosting providers to enforce copyright claims, with no meaningful penalties for bad-faith requests and no practical, speedy remedies for sites, users, or readers who are wrongly deplatformed. Past proposals - SOPA/PIPA, Block BEARD, FADPA, ACPA - illustrate how these measures scale existing takedown problems into wholesale site removals.

Site-wide blocking magnifies real-world harms seen under current systems: abusive DMCA takedowns used to silence critics, automated content filters that choke legitimate expression (for example, brief audio matches on platforms like YouTube), and burdensome legal contests that only well-resourced parties can pursue. The result would be a vast new architecture of censorship that reshapes the internet away from openness and innovation. Congress should abandon DEFEND IP and any site-blocking approach that substitutes broad network controls for narrow, accountable copyright enforcement.