Thread: Feds Seize Websites Suspected of Online Piracy

Feds Seize Websites Suspected of Online Piracy

Published November 27, 2010
FoxNews.com

The U.S. government is shutting down websites suspected of copyright infringement or selling counterfeit goods as Congress debates a bill that would give feds more authority to do so.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an agency within the Homeland Security Department, has seized more than 70 websites in recent days, according to the Wall Street Journal, and posted a notice saying that the domain name has been seized by ICE through court-ordered warrants. The notice also states penalties for willful copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit goods.

Neither ICE nor Homeland Security responded to messages seeking comment. An ICE spokeswoman confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the agency executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names but declined additional comment.

"As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time," she told the newspaper.

Online publications, including TorrentFreak, first reported the seizures which began on Thursday when ICE agents raided facilities operated by a hip hop file-sharing site called RapGodFathers. Other seized sites that share music or sell goods include torrent-finder.com, timberlandlike.com, dvdsetsonline.com and handbagspop.com.

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The seizures come as Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., vows to block an online copyright enforcement bill that was unanimously approved last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The bill would allow the Justice Department to seek expedited court orders blacklisting websites suspected of piracy.

Supporters say the bill will help put an end to websites, some of them foreign-owned, that steal intellectual property, which is estimated to cost the U.S. economy more than $100 billion every year and results in the loss of thousands of jobs.

"The Internet serves as the glue of international commerce in today's global economy. But it's also been turned into a tool for online thieves to sell counterfeit and pirated goods, making hundreds of millions of dollars off of stolen American intellectual property," Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said in a written statement.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the committee, said if "rogue websites" existed in the physical world, the store would be shuttered immediately and the proprietors would be arrested.

"We cannot excuse the behavior because it happens online and the owners operate overseas," he said in a written statement. "The Internet needs to be free – not lawless."

But Wyden says the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, or COICA, is excessive.

"Deploying this statue to combat online copyright infringement seems almost like using a bunker-busting cluster bomb, when what you need is a precision-guided missile," he said during a hearing on digital trade. "If you don't think this thing through carefully, the collateral damage would be American innovation, American jobs, and a secure Internet."

Wyden's opposition dooms the bill in this Congress and would force the next Congress convening in January to start from scratch.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based digital rights group, also opposes the bill, saying the collateral damage would be "enormous." The group said if the bill had passed a few years ago, YouTube might not exist today.

"There are already laws and procedures in place for taking down sites that violate the law," the group said in a statement on its website. "This act would allow the attorney general to censor sites even when no court has found they have infringed copyright or any other law."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11 ... ne-piracy/

List of sites @

http://resources.govdelivery.com/resour ... _names.pdf

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, November 29, 2010

Federal Courts Order Seizure of 82 Website Domains Involved in Selling Counterfeit Goods as Part of DOJ and ICE Cyber Monday Crackdown

WASHINGTON – Seizure orders have been executed against 82 domain names of commercial websites engaged in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and copyrighted works as part of Operation In Our Sites v. 2.0, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director John Morton of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today.

The coordinated federal law enforcement operation targeted online retailers of a diverse array of counterfeit goods, including sports equipment, shoes, handbags, athletic apparel and sunglasses as well as illegal copies of copyrighted DVD boxed sets, music and software.



During the course of the operation, federal law enforcement agents made undercover purchases from online retailers suspected of selling counterfeit goods. In many instances, the goods were shipped directly into the United States from suppliers in other countries using international express mail. If the goods were confirmed as counterfeit or otherwise illegal, seizure orders for the domain names of the websites that sold the goods were obtained from U.S. magistrate judges. Individuals attempting to access the websites will now find a banner notifying them that the domain name of that website has been seized by federal authorities.



"By seizing these domain names, we have disrupted the sale of thousands of counterfeit items, while also cutting off funds to those willing to exploit the ingenuity of others for their own personal gain,â€