IFTA Seeks Government Action, Stakeholder Input

The Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) says that online piracy puts future independent productions at risk and has asked the government to boost online copy protections in tandem with industry.

IFTA's argument for stronger government measures to combat online copyrighted content theft came in a filing with the Commerce Department's Patent and Trademark office, which has opened an inquiry into "Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Internet Economy." IFTA echoed concerns about the YouTube/Viacom case, in which the latter is appealing a lower court decision that YouTube was only required to take down infringing content that had complaints filed against it, even if it knew generally that other infringing content was on its site.