Feds and Hollywood Seize Domains of Movie Pirates

adeelarshad82 writes "The federal government and Hollywood teamed up to seize domain names of seven sites that allegedly trafficked in copyrighted movies without due payment. The so-called 'Operation in Our Sites' sting targeted TVShack.net, Movies-links.tv, Filespump.com, Now-movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, PirateCity.org, zml.com, NinjaVideo.net, and NinjaThis.net. The operation was run by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, in conjunction with several Hollywood studios. Unlike past anti-piracy efforts, the sites did not actually offer the movies for download, but instead streamed the movies and TV shows against ads. Previously, movie crackdowns had concentrated on sites that distributed movie files, most recently using the BitTorrent protocol."

Comments

You Americans don't need to fear "terrorists".

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the corporations that are most harmful to your freedom.

Come again?

[Meriahven]

A venal government of a single country hijacked multiple domains with ease? Surely this should not be possible.

You Americans *do* need to fear terrorists.

[thijsh]

Corporation and Terrorism are not mutually exclusive. The effect of terrorism is that by harming a few people you hurt the majority by creating fear and thus terrorizing them, reducing their quality of life and freedoms. This also does not require blowing yourself up (hence the reason the term 'terrified' does not mean 'blown to bits'). If people stick to this proper definition (instead of modern sensationalism) it becomes very clear this applies to the media corporations tactics. They sue a few (actually thousands, more than have been blown up by Al Qaida) to terrorize others, and nobody knows if they will be sued (the little fact of downloading is not even relevant, anyone got sued by them).

So you Americans *do* need to fear terrorists (and thus some corporations), it's just that your idea of what terrorism means is all FOXed up.

Re:You Americans *do* need to fear terrorists.

[Pojut]

In our defense, we are, for the most part, reactionary lower-level mammals.

I kid, I kid. But seriously...fellow Americans, stop being so terrified of anyone that looks lightly tanned, stop believing everything the government tells you, and for all that you think is holy, stop watching mainstream news. Remember: just because you agree with it doesn't make it unbiased.

Huh?

[X.25]

So, it's easier to get US government to shut down some domains pirating movies, than to shutdown domains used by phishers, scammers and all the other types that are actually hurting 'ordinary' people (no matter how dumb those people are)?

I see.

Re:Great Win for HollyWood and the Feds

[camperdave]

They won't stop until all your bits are the right color.

Hmm...

[mea37]

When I hear a subset of the /. crowd claim that individuals should be allowed to "share" music files for free without fear of copyright lawsuits, I respectfully disagree (in general), but at least I get where they're coming from.

But I see a lot of people here wanting to defend sites that provide a means for anyone to watch movies on demand, taking a profit and not passing any compensation on to the rights-holders... which I guess makes sense if you think there shouldn't be copyright at all, but in that case my disagreement with your position is perhaps a bit less respectful.

Particularly intersting since any site that isn't engaged in copyright infringement gets screamed at if they dare make you look at an ad.

Seems to me taking the position against the rights-holders has become a knee-jerk reaction.