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Radix joins the Hollywood content police

Kevin Murphy, May 13, 2016, Domain Registries

Radix has become the second major gTLD registry to announce a content policing deal with the movie industry.
It today said it has signed an agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America similar to the one Donuts announced in February.
Like Donuts, Radix will treat the MPAA as a “trusted notifier” for the purposes of taking down “large-scale pirate websites”.
Radix said the deal “imposes strict standards for such referrals, including that they be accompanied by evidence of clear and pervasive copyright infringement, and a representation that the MPAA has first attempted to contact the registrar and hosting provider for resolution.”
Donuts described its notifier program in this document (pdf). Radix said its arrangement is “similar”.
The Donuts-MPAA deal proved somewhat controversial.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation invoked the slippery slope argument, saying of it:

The danger in agreements like this is that they could become a blanket policy that Internet users cannot avoid. If what’s past is prologue, expect to see MPAA and other groups of powerful media companies touting the Donuts agreement as a new norm, and using it to push ICANN and governments towards making all domain name registries disable access to an entire website on a mere accusation of infringement.

The EFF said these kinds of deals could ultimately lead to legal freedom of speech being curtailed online.
We’re not quite there yet — right now we have two gTLD registries (albeit covering over 200 gTLDs) and one trusted notifier — but I expect more similar deals in future, branching out into different industries such as music and pharamaceuticals.
The deals stem in part from the Domain Name Association’s Healthy Domains Initiative, which aims to avoid ICANN/government regulation by creating voluntary best practices for the industry.
The advantage of a voluntary arrangement is that there’s no risk of a terminal sanction — such as losing your registry contract — if you fail to live up to its terms.
Radix’s portfolio includes .website, .space, .online and .tech. It’s also a .music and .web applicant.

Donuts makes Hollywood content policing deal

Kevin Murphy, February 9, 2016, Domain Registries

Donuts has made a deal with the American movie industry that will make it easier to take down piracy domains.
The Motion Picture Association of America has been given a “Trusted Notifier” status, and the two companies have agreed upon a domain take-down framework.
The agreement targets “large-scale pirate websites”, Donuts said.
It’s the first such deal Donuts has made, executive VP Jon Nevett told DI, but it’s likely to be extended into other industries, possibility including music, pharmaceuticals and child abuse prevention.
“This could be a model for not just content-related issues,” he said.
Nevett did not want to get into much detail about the specifics of the take-down process by discussing the definition of “large scale” or timing, but he did say that the MPAA has an obligation to do manual research into each domain it wants suspending.
After it receives a report from the MPAA, Donuts will reach out to the registrar and registrant to ask for an explanation of the alleged piracy.
A decision to suspend the domain or leave it alone would be made “solely in our discretion”, Nevett said.
Donuts already has this in its acceptable use policy, which reads in part:

Donuts reserves the right, at its sole discretion and at any time and without limitation, to deny, suspend, cancel, redirect, or transfer any registration or transaction, or place any domain name(s) on registry lock, hold, or similar status as it determines necessary for any of the following reasons:
…
domain name use is abusive or violates this AUP, or a third party’s rights or acceptable use policies, including but not limited to the infringement of any copyright or trademark;

While Donuts is the registry for .movie and .theater, the MPAA agreement applies to all of its almost 200 gTLDs.
The announcement comes the day before the Domain Name Association meets to discuss its Healthy Domains Initiative.
Nevett said that DNA members will meet tomorrow with law enforcement, IP owners, and abuse prevention and security folk to seek input on the question “What are tenets of healthy domain ecosystem?”
That input will be discussed at a subsequent DNA meeting, likely to coincide with the ICANN meeting in Marrakech this April.
The eventual goal is to come up with a set of voluntary best practices for registries and registrars.
Nevett stressed that the MPAA deal, and whatever the DNA comes up with, are voluntary agreements made outside the auspices of ICANN’s contracts.
Despite this, the “Trusted Notifier” concept does put me in mind of section 3.18 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement, where governmental or affiliated entities are given special powers to have dodgy domains investigated and suspended.