The COICA was easily approved [JURIST report] with a 19-0 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and has been hailed by the entertainment industry. Conversely, digital rights groups are strongly opposed to the bill, comparing the proposed restrictions to similar Internet restrictions [JURIST news archive] in Turkey and China. The COICA is part of the US initiative to discourage copyright infringement activities and infringement of other intellectual property rights. In October, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) [official website] and other participating countries released [JURIST report] a draft [text, PDF] of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) [USTR backgrounder], an international pact to defend intellectual property rights from counterfeit and piracy. The draft was released after three years [JURIST report] and 10 rounds of negotiations among the ACTA parties. Notably, China, a source of many of the world's counterfeit goods, is not a participant [Reuters report] in the agreement or discussions.