Victoria Espinel is pressing on with a crackdown on file-sharing websites. W.H. continues copyright crackdown

The Obama administration is ramping up its mission to shut down websites that illegally share copyrighted content, such as movies and music.

White House intellectual property czar Victoria Espinel said Monday that the Internet community should “expect more” pre-emptive action as the administration combats online copyright infringement — especially the illegal copying and sale of pharmaceutical drugs.


“We are going after the piraters and counterfeiters,” Espinel said at a Brookings Institution conference on Internet policy, adding that intellectual property infringement poses a “direct threat” to consumers and costs jobs.

Espinel’s remarks come just after the Justice Department shuttered more than 80 websites believed to be facilitating the sale of counterfeit goods and the sharing of illegally obtained movies, music and TV shows. That effort, timed for “Cyber Monday,” was the second leg of the agency’s Operation In Our Sites II campaign.

The Justice Department’s announcement won praise from the entertainment industry and renewed interest on Capitol Hill for legislation that would grant the administration additional power to close down suspected rogue websites.

“The innovative use of the tools currently available to law enforcement to seize these domain names is similar to the remedy that would be specifically authorized under the bipartisan Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act for websites that are registered in the United States,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who sponsored the legislation.

“We can no longer sit on the sidelines while American intellectual property is stolen and sold online using our own infrastructure,” he said in a statement.

Espinel hinted that the administration’s copyright protection push could extend to target counterfeit drugs sold on the Web. Espinel said she and others had held a “series of meetings with Google, GoDaddy, American Express, Microsoft and others to see what we can do about online pharmacies.”

She said an announcement would come in “the weeks ahead.”