U.S. Gov’t seizes 70+ domains, but the sites live on

November 29, 2010 By Jeffrey Van Camp

The Department of Homeland Security has seized nearly 80 domains from torrent sites and others it has received copyright claims about.

Over the weekend, the U.S. government’s war on piracy took an Orwellian turn. Without any notice, the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement office seized nearly 80 domains for copyright and trademark violations including Torrent-Finder.com, a well known BitTorrent aggregator. The websites now all display the graphic below.

Unfortunately, though the government has seized these domains, a majority of the sites are already back on the net via alternative URLs. Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger explains: “That’s a lot of staff attorney time and trouble to get a big fat nothing out of it, which is exactly what they get going down this road. Why? Because all they can do is redirect the domain pointers which will do exactly nothing when the sites re-register under a top-level domain not under the US Government’s jurisdiction – and there are lots of them.”

Basically, the U.S. government only has jurisdiction over .com domains and those controlled by Verisign. Many of the sites, including Torrent-Finder have moved to .info domains and are already up and running. Others are protesting via their Twitter and social media pages.

While the government has the right to enforce copyright laws, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to ignore the procedures laid out in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act as well as the COICA bill (Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act) that recently passed through the senate, which would call for a blacklist of URLs and a virtual censoring of the web. However, under COICA, such immediate seizures would not be possible.

Recently, the tides have been turning against file sharing services and websites. In October, file-sharing program Lime Wire was shut down and the founders of Pirate Bay may be headed to jail soon.

Did the DHS seize these domains simply because it may not have the chance in a few months? Is it right to shut down a site without notifying the owner or providing him any avenue for recourse?

Showing 24 comments

gerry at 5:33am 27th December 2010 US government = Powerless.
kritik1 at 7:30pm 12th December 2010 For some it is called the game of life. The players are manipulators and the manipulated and guess where you stand. er,.......the manipulated, ahem,.....which is what the manipulators dont say. and what they say is this: as long as we have suckers like you we can make money.
Eric at 5:07pm 12th December 2010 Hey, it is OK to download secret documents from Wikileaks, but I can't download a 20 yr old copy of "The Lion King" from Pirate Bay for my kids to watch? I know, poor poor Bill Gates, Madonna, and Tom Cruise are all flat going Bankrupt due to Pirate downloads, right?
1. kritik1 at 7:22pm 12th December 2010 Its the greed that keeps people going..... to suck the last drop of blood from you. The 20 year old copy probably made millions, the publishers, the directors, the actors, the distributors, they all gained a lot. but they are still not happy with what they got. you can rent one for $1 from the red box kiosk or you could borrow one from your friend or library, but god forbid if you downloaded it.........you committed the biggest crime of the century.
2. Guest at 9:25pm 12th December 2010 Disney will NEVER release a Legal DVD of Song of the South. Now As they (the MPAA) refuses to provide a legal copy of said movie then we should sue the MPAA demanding they have Disney release the DVD. In fact they should release EVERY film ever made or ever will be made in such quantities that every man woman & child may possess a copy for all eternity. . This mean s they MUST release said movie in all past, current & future media formats. so IOW 7 billion 8mm film, Beta tape, VHS, Laserdisk & all other obsolete formats just in case someone wishes to purchase in that format. Granted this would bankrupt the Studios but hey NOT MY PROBLEM.
Eddie at 11:18am 6th December 2010 Just records songs from your computer if you want songs. Dah!
Guest at 9:46am 6th December 2010 18 USC 981 states the authority of the federal government to seize real and personal property by the Dept of Justice. The interesting thing is that it's intent is related to money laundering (section 1956, 1957) and organized crime activities (1958). This seizure is authorized by warrant from a District Court following (normally) a Grand Jury hearing, where the Government presents it's evidence that the owner of this property committed a crime. While copyright infringement is a crime, there has never been any proof that torrent tracker sites actually infringed on copyrights.
Paul at 12:14pm 4th December 2010 Questions. What is the difference between torrents selling books or music online to someone & then is given or sold to someone else? Are the authors getting royalties? If I understand the copyright laws the auction sites such as Ebay & Amazon among many others should come under the same laws. What about used books, CD's, DVD's & audio books sellers? Are they next? Then go after the thrift stores. Let's get crazy & make everything illegal. Let's get real!!!
1. Kim at 4:31pm 7th December 2010 The difference is that when I give a book to a used bookstore, I no longer have the book. Ditto with clothing at a thrift store, etc. Reselling physical goods means that the person who sold them/gave them does not have them any more. A digital file, however, is a copy. If I put up a torrent for open distribution, my copy doesn't go away. So look at it as an author. Say you publish a book. Some people buy the book on first printing, and you get profit. True, they can resell the book later. But anyone who wants a copy right away will have to buy it. Next, you publish an ebook. Someone will still have to buy it... at least once. After that, they could crack it, copy it, and put it out for almost instant distribution. It's not like reselling a used book a couple of months later. It's not even like a library, where only one patron can have the book at a time. It's like printing a bunch of copies of the book and giving them away the moment it's off the press.
  1. Guest at 9:18pm 12th December 2010 The Used bookstore then resells your book to another person & neither the publisher nor the Author get paid from that sale. Same with Items sold at thrift stores. The Original producer does not get paid royalties from sales in a thrift store. So according to the Anti Piracy groups the Government should seize all Thrift Stores & used book Stores for piracy... Not to mention Libraries.
Guest at 12:22pm 2nd December 2010 This is completely and utterly sickening to me. The department of Homeland security could be utilized in a better fashion. There are more important security issues that they should be doing something about state side and they are working on this? Actors and singers have been over compensated for their contributions to society for a long time. The middle class is struggling to get fair wage and even find a job across the country and our government is targeting American citizens, whose wallets are already tapped out. Good luck get your money from broke America.
guest at 5:10pm 1st December 2010 Das ist Verbotten
Phuong at 9:51am 30th November 2010 So the websites just moved to domains that the US gov has no jurisdiction over. Smart. The Feds should have seen that coming then again they looked like they winged this takedown without any planning. Why did the gov act so carelessly anyway? You can't stop piracy by taking down a few websites. There was a poll about this a few hours ago, http://my-take.com/poll/should-the-gov-be-allowed... I don't care much about fake Louis Vuitton handbags but how can they take down torrent finder? There are tons of sites like it and they don't get in trouble for telling people where the links are. Besides this doesn't solve the underlying problem of stopping the supply or demand. Doing this is a waste of time.
Mike Mozart at 3:10am 30th November 2010 I have posted a thoroughly researched News Report on my Blog that Proves that a Major USA Media Company was involved in the Distribution and Promotion of over 500 million copies of P2P File Sharing Media Piracy Software from their own servers. These included LimeWire, Kazaa, Bit-Torrent, Morpheus and Many others, often with accompanying Editorial Content praising AND Demonstrating their copyright infringing abilities! This is just being made public right now. My work is fully documented. http://DancedWithTheDevil.blogspot.com
john at 10:23am 29th November 2010 The process DIDN'T work in Sweden. What The Pirate Bay does is not illegal under Swedish law. They were only prosecuted (persecuted) due to political pressure from the US state department who was acting on behalf of and at the request of Hollywood. This whole seizure was, arguably, illegal. Copyright enforcement is not the mandate of of H.S. but they are the only ones with any hint of authority to execute seizures without a court order as a part of customs enforcement. Using this and stretching it beyond their mandate is this gestapo fashion was the only way to do this. Unless someone can get the courts to react and condemn this act and get the seizures reversed nothing will be done. Congress is to busy sucking at the *IAA teats and selling us all down the river to the corporations to ever put a stop to it.
MNJetter at 8:44am 29th November 2010 I am against pirating of copyrighted media. But I am even more against the government abusing its power. The fourth amendment protects us against unreasonable search AND SEIZURE, which is considered under the law as any seizure that does not follow the due process laid out by Congress or other relevant lawmaking bodies. I am confused as to why the government didn't simply follow proper channels. The proper channels seem to have worked pretty well against the Pirate Bay guys. Not the website itself, maybe, but at least with proper channels Sweden has someone to punish. With most of the seized websites up and running again and the U.S. Government now getting a bad rep from their seizure, what exactly is being accomplished by this?
1. Bob at 5:02pm 1st December 2010 How is it unreasonable? They got a warrant signed by a judge. That's the normal due process for seizing any property believed being used to commit crimes. If the person is acquitted, they give it back.
  1. Mavent at 5:32pm 1st December 2010 It's unreasonable because our Justice system was never intended to be the Extortion Arm of the Entertainment Industry.
    Frank at 11:17am 6th December 2010 Violation of copyright is theft. Its not extortion. extortion is when I say you do x or else (actually that'sblackmail but in principle they are similar)..
    guest at 4:28am 12th December 2010 You are so misinformed! These sites do not host copyrighted material or even point to where they may be obtained. These type of materials can be easier found by using Google,or any search engine for that matter..If your site happens to be on the RIAA or the MPAA list,you will be shutdown.If this COICA bill becomes law,it will give the U.S. govt,the authority to seize any website in the world,they deem unfit,thru political pressures via international treatise.This is censorship!
    
    Guest at 9:11pm 12th December 2010 So is borrowing a friend's CD & Recording it onto onto your mp3 player or Taping a TV show of the TV. According you The Government may come & raid a Garage sale Claim all proerty on the land & throw the people living there in prison for life. Notice a few things missing like oh DUE PROCESS? A TRIAL? Oh yea your more the pro police state type.
  2. mike at 12:34am 5th December 2010 They give it back? What planet do you live on?
  3. M Ryan at 8:51pm 7th December 2010 You poor ignorant soul. If you'd ever heard of asset forfeiture abuses, you would know what you have said is abusrd and you must live in a dream world. All through the US, government at all levels initiate causes of action against inanimate objects that cannot defend themselves in order to steal them from their owners without their owners having any recourse. It is shameful and a condemantion of the US justice farse....
2. kritik1 at 6:40pm 12th December 2010 i will explain to you exactly the whole scenario. they're all braun no brains, that's why they're called the government. take action first, ask questions later and the gym that they go to is called Abuse what you Can. If I had a wish list to give to the smart man on the top and that would include fire them all on grounds of stupidity.