A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators were scheduled Monday to introduce an act that would crack down on sites that traffic in pirated intellectual property, whether or not those sites are housed in the United States.

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators were scheduled Monday to introduce an act that would crack down on sites that traffic in pirated intellectual property, whether or not those sites are housed in the United States.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act is sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and senior Republican member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and co-sponsored by a number of Senate Democrats, including Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), plus others.

The bill takes the novel step of not only cracking down on domestic sites that illegally distribute copyrighted material, but also authorizes the Department of Justice to choke off access to foreign sites, including ordering domestic ISPs and payment providers to either block or stop doing business with the infringing sites.

"The Justice Department is currently limited in the remedies available to prevent websites dedicated to offering infringing content," Senator Leahy said in a statement. "These websites are often based overseas yet target American consumers. American consumers are too often deceived into thinking the products they are purchasing are legitimate because the websites reside at familiar-sounding domain names and are complete with corporate advertising, credit card acceptance, and advertising links that make them appear legitimate."

The bill - which would need to survive a full vote in the Senate, the House, and be signed into law by President Obama - would authorize the Department of Justice to file an in rem civil action against a domain name, and seek a preliminary order from the court that the domain name is being used to traffic infringing material. (The term in rem refers to a suit against a thing - in this case, a domain - rather than a specific individual or individuals.)

In the last few months, the world's governments have taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward software and other intellectual-property piracy. In June, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden announced . In 2009, the Swedish government ; in May, however, the , as a maneuver the group's leader said demonstrated its commitment to reforming copyright law.

, other indexes of movies and other copyrighted material, have also been forced to either shut down or refocus themselves on distributing approved files.

What the bill does

According to the COICA bill, a domestic registrar would be required to suspend the site's domain once the order was received.

The DOJ would use a slightly different procedure for sites hosting allegedly pirated materials outside the United States. In that case, the DOJ could serve the order either to one or a collection of ISPs, which could display the site; to a financial payment provider, such as eBay's PayPal or a credit-card service; or to a display advertiser, such as Google or Microsoft.

In the ISPs' case, the order would require the ISP to block access to the site. The payment processor and display advertiser would be required to block payments and ads to the site. It wasn't clear what leeway an ISP would have to contest the DOJ's order, or if any ISP would do so.

According to the bill, the U.S. Attorney General would require the DOJ's intellectual property enforcement coordinator to post a list of the infringing sites. The AG may also expand the order to additional domains.

A site may also petition the court to be removed from the list, providing that the site show that it does not infringe copyrights.

Interestingly, however, the bill also includes a list of possible targets by the DOJ, even if there has been no court order agreeing that the sites harbor illegally copyrighted files. "The Attorney General shall maintain a public listing of domain names that, upon information and reasonable belief, the Department of Justice determines are dedicated to infringing activities but for which the Attorney General has not filed an action under this section," the bill states.

Naturally, the bill was hailed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). "We're very pleased to join a great number of creators and workers from throughout the motion picture and television industry in support today of this important legislation to combat efforts to steal the lifeblood of one of our nation's most important industries," the MPAA said in a statement. "We commend and thank Chairman Leahy for his leadership on this important matter."

It wasn't clear, however, whether the bill would be used to counter outright fraud, such as , or just to crack down on sites like The Pirate Bay, which hosts pirated movies and software.

Senator Hatch, however, implied the latter.

"In today's global economy the Internet has become the glue of international commerce  connecting consumers with a wide-array of products and services worldwide. But it's also become a tool for online thieves to sell counterfeit and pirated goods, making hundreds of millions of dollars off of stolen American intellectual property," Senator Hatch added, in a statement. "This legislation is critical to our continued fight against online piracy and counterfeiting. By coordinating our efforts with industry stakeholders and law enforcement officials, we'll be better able to target those who are profiting from illegal activity."

The Copyright Alliance also approved the bill and its crackdown on pirated works.

"Chairman Leahy once again is providing visionary leadership on an issue of importance to America's intellectual property-based economy," the Alliance's Executive Director, Patrick Ross, said. "He has created an opportunity to have a critically needed conversation about the plague of rogue sites, in which parasitic pirates profit off of the theft of creative works. The Copyright Alliance has long encouraged the U.S. Congress and the Administration to ensure effective enforcement of copyright laws in the digital age. It is well known that digital theft has been overtaking physical piracy as the leading threat to America's copyright industries for some time, and greater resources and involvement at the federal level would be a welcome development."