Legislation to tackle online intellectual property theft moved ahead this week as the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss the issue of rogue websites.

Representatives from the Motion Picture Association of America, Pfizer, MasterCard, the AFL-CIO, Google, and the Register of Copyrights testified at the November 16 hearing.

The Chamber, along with a coalition of more than 350 companies, trade associations, and professional organizations, supports legislation designed to cut off foreign rogue websites from the U.S. marketplace. The legislation provides enhanced enforcement tools to meet new IP enforcement challenges and protect American jobs.

Because rogue websites dedicated to the theft of America’s most innovative and creative products are often operated entirely outside the United States they are beyond the reach of U.S. enforcement agencies. Rogue sites legislation is designed disrupt the illicit business model of trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy by cutting off services such as payment processing, advertising, and linking.

“Criminals are not standing still, and if our efforts to protect American creativity are to succeed, the law cannot stand still either. That is why we need this bill,” said Michael O’Leary of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc., during his testimony. “The Stop Online Piracy Act recognizes that to effectively stop online theft, every member of the Internet ecosystem needs to play a role, including the rights holders who created the content, the Internet Service Providers and search engines that connect consumers to rogue sites, and the advertising networks and payment processors that provide those sites with financial support.”

U.S. Chamber Senior Vice President of Communications Tom Collamore wrote on the Chamber’s blog, “There has been a great deal of discussion of rogue sites legislation that relates to copyright issues. Lost in that discussion is the reality that rogue sites threaten consumer safety by offering dangerously defective and deceptive goods. While consumer health and safety is being undermined on one front, jobs in our most creative and innovative industries are being attacked on the other.”

Approximately 19 million Americans are employed in industries that depend on strong protection of IP, Collamore wrote in his post.

Rogue websites are devoted almost exclusively to offering or enabling unauthorized downloads or streaming of copyrighted material – including the latest movies and music hits— or trafficking in counterfeit products, from pharmaceuticals to luxury goods. A recent report by global brand protection firm MarkMonitor examined about 100 rogue websites and found that they generate more than 53 billion visits per year, making them second only to Facebook in terms of Internet traffic.