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Usually one good way to resolve a dispute among many parties is to have a mediator help everyone come to an agreement on something.  But the disparity between the way governments work and the way the Internet operates has only widened in the last year.  Now, the Internet Society's lead policy spokesperson says that governments won't be able to solve issues like piracy as long as they come at them from a standpoint of control.

The U.S. International Trade Commission would be the court of first instance for disputes brought by parties claiming that a Web site hosted offshore is trafficking in its intellectual property, in a draft of a bi-partisan bill released today by Sen. Ron Wyden (D - Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R - Calif.). The Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade bill (whose acronym is somehow "OPEN") is being offered as an alternative to the PROTECT-IP anti-piracy legislation which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last May, but which has yet to come to a vote of the full Senate. The bill's House counterpart, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), is currently being debated by representatives.

USITC is already the principal court for resolving intellectual property disputes between American and foreign companies, so certainly no one yet can fault the bill lack of precedent.